“I’m not doing anything wrong. I’m just afraid of the punishment,” wrote Jack Gantos in his book, “Hole in My Life.”

Held at Washington Street Education Center Auditorium in Chelsea, Michigan, Gantos will sign books on Saturday, October 17, at 11 a.m. “Hole in My Life” can also be found for free at Cravingz in Stockbridge or at the local library.

Sophomore Madison Stowe, while realizing the lesson, had a negative opinion of the book. “It doesn’t catch my attention,” Stowe said. “I’m reading it because it got recommended to me, and my friends are reading it.”

The piece of juvenile literature is about a young Jack Gantos that, in desperation for adventure, a way out of his job and college cash, foolishly agreed to help smuggle a yacht full of hashish from the Virgin Islands to New York City.

When caught, the government sentenced Gantos to six years in prison, forcing him to stare at the walls of his compact cell, with only writing to help him endure the “worst experience of his life.”

The story moves from one intense moment to the next–from his senior year in high school, to his brief drug-smuggling career, to being locked up in a cell, to discovering that he doesn’t just want to be a writer. The book is about how words changed a man’s life.

“It was neat how he always wanted to be a writer, and he ended up being one,” Suzanne Stahl, a worker at Cravingz, said.  

“It is a good book for young people to read because it seems so relatable,” said English teacher Alaina Feliks about the main protagonist. “He’s not a terrible person or a horrible criminal. He’s just a kid that makes a really bad choice, and that has a big consequence.”