Holes

Author: Louis Sachar
Illustrator: N/A

© Date: 1998
Publisher: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux
Pages: 233
Chapters: Yes
Illustrations: No
Publisher Recommended Age: 10 and up
Bonus Activities at End of Book: No, but the edition that I had included essays from Louis Sachar’s brother, daughter, and wife along with Louis Sachar’s Newbery Medal acceptance speech and pictures of Louis Sachar growing up and on the Holes movie set

Summary from Book: Stanley Yelnat’s family has a history of bad luck, so he isn’t too surprised when a miscarriage of justice sends him to a boys’ juvenile detention center, Camp green Lake. But there is no lake—it has been dry for over a hundred years—and it’s hardly a camp: as punishment, the boys must each dig a hole a day, five feet deep, five feet across, in the hard earth of the dried-up lake bed. The warden claims that this pointless labor builds character, but that’s a lie. Stanley must try to dig up the truth.

In this wonderfully inventive, compelling novel that is both serious and funny, Louis Sachar weaves a narrative puzzle that tangles and untangles, until it becomes clear that the hand of fate has been at work in the lives of the characters—and their forebears—for generations. It is a darkly humorous tale of crime, punishment, and redemption.

Page Pig Thoughts: This book was hard to put down, but I am thankful for the times that I did put it down. Then I could ponder the intricacies of plot points and fully soak in the beauty of moments like Stanley carrying Zero to the top of the mountain. While the story was centered on a juvenile detention camp, it did not linger or focus on the back stories of all of the boys. Nor did it linger on brutal moments (there were several), they were used to move along the plot. Several characters were cruel in their own way, one of the boys was a bully, the counselors were harsh, and the Warden was a particularly brutal and cruel character. I was curious why the counselors would stay to work with such a brutal warden, but the story ending put together why they would stay—the hope of treasure being found.

I really appreciated the depth of the writing style, the layers of the story, and how the puzzle pieces fit together. That being said, the end of the story leaves holes for the reader to fill in themself, which is fun and annoying all at once. This was a good story of finding inner strength even in dark times, and never knowing what the future holds. But take note of the Items of Interest, definitely use caution with younger or sensitive readers.

Family Unit: Stanley lived with his mother and father before going to Camp Green Lake. Zero had been living on his own on the streets, but had been with his mother previously.

Conflict/Social Issues:

Stanley is bullied at school by another boy, Derrick. One incident has Derrick throwing Stanley’s notebook into the toilet.
Stanley is bullied by another boy at camp, Zigzag.
Stanley never fights back against his bullies.
Zero is told that he is stupid and not worth anything.
There are minor racial tensions between the boys at camp.
The Warden does not have much patience for anyone, including the counselors.
Zero was homeless and living on his own before he wound up at Camp Green Lake.

Positive Items:

While Stanley does blame his no-good-dirty-rotten-pig-stealing-great-great-grandfather for some of his bad luck, he does not dwell on his bad luck. He just followed the family tradition of remaining hopeful and moving on with life.
While Stanley had been having a string of bad luck throughout his life, his luck does turn around. So while it seems that the odds are against us, we never know when something good may be coming our way.
Stanley does not make assumptions about others, which allows him to become friends with Zero.
Stanley finds the happiest point in his life to that point, was lying on the mountaintop under the stars with Zero by his side.
The Warden seemingly lived her life focused on finding the item that would make her rich, but in the end, she wound up bitter and with nothing. Her story demonstrates the beauty of not focusing on finding the easy way out of things.
Maybe your child will be more interested in eating onions. They have magical healing powers in this story, and maybe some of them are true in real life also

Items of Interest:

The family story said that Stanley had a great-great-grandfather who had stolen a pig from a one-legged Gypsy, and she put a curse on him and all his descendants. Stanley and his parents didn’t believe in curses, but blamed the no-good-dirty-rotten-pig-stealing-great-great-grandfather whenever things didn’t go their way. Stanley and his family always remained hopeful.
Stanley chose to go to Camp Green Lake instead of going to jail. He had no idea what Camp Green Lake was, but had never been to camp before.
Camp Green Lake was a barren, dried up lake with daytime temperatures in the summer around ninety-five degrees in the shade, if you can find any in the barren landscape. Every day, each boy had to dig a hole five feet wide by five feet deep as measured by the shovel that they use for digging. They start their day at 4:30am to stand a chance of being done digging before the hottest part of the day, if you can dig fast enough. A water truck comes around a few times during the day to fill each boys’ water canteen and deliver a sack lunch.
Stories from the past are woven into Stanley’s story, so we learn about the great-great-grandfather, Elya, and how he didn’t really steal a pig, but he didn’t hold up his end of a bargain. Young Elya had been in love and when he discovered that the girl that he loved had an empty head, he was upset and wound up on a boat to America from Latvia. While he was on the boat, he realized that he hadn’t kept his promise to the gypsy and felt terrible. But there was not much that he could do on a boat or in America.
Green Lake dried up after a racial issue. A black man kissed a white woman (they were in love). The townspeople intended to kill the man and leave the woman to God’s wrath. The townspeople shot the man’s donkey, then track down the man while he was trying to escape and shot him too. The woman later killed the sheriff and became a famous outlaw for 20 years.
One of the historical townspeople was a rich man who prided himself on his money, but had no interest in being smart. A woman married him for his money. Then he lost all of his money. The couple was then desperately seeking the loot of the outlaw who had returned to the dried up lake.
Rattlesnakes and scorpions are hazards at Camp Green Lake, but they are not as bad as yellow-spotted lizards. One bite from the lizard, and there was nothing that anyone could do for you. The lizards are fictional, but sometimes I found myself wondering if they could be real.
Before Stanley arrived at Camp Green Lake, one of the boys chose being bitten by a rattlesnake over continuing to dig holes. He took off his shoe and sock to ensure that he could be bit.
The boys all have nicknames, Stanley is Caveman. Hector Zeroni is Zero. Other nicknames include X-ray, Zigzag, Squid, etc. One counselor, Mr. Pedanski, is Mom; another counselor is Mr. Sir.
Stanley discovers that there is no way out of hole digging for anyone at Camp Green Lake. His first day, Stanley struggles his way through hole digging despite being out of shape and never attempting digging that large of a hole before. The next day, Stanley’s badly sunburned head, sore muscles, and heavily blistered hands make hole digging even trickier.
The Warden seems to know and see everything at camp, despite never showing up much around camp. The boys think that she has tiny cameras and microphones around camp.
The only chance of getting out of digging a hole is to find something of interest to the Warden. Stanley finds a fossil, but is told that will not interest Warden. He later finds a gold lipstick tube cap, which he gives to another boy who presents the find and gets out of digging for the day. But then the boys are worked even harder digging around the hole where the cap was supposedly found. Eventually Warden gives up the extra digging and they go back to regular holes.
While the boys are digging bigger holes together, Zigzag whacks Stanley on the head with his shovel. Stanley is then bleeding from a gash below his ear. Mr. Sir makes a bandage out of his burlap sunflower seed bag and tells Stanley to get back to work.
Another day, one of the boys steals Mr. Sir’s bag of sunflower seeds. The boys were tossing the bag to each other. Zigzag tosses the bag to Stanley for his turn. Stanley thinks that the bag was open, but either way, the bag of seeds spills in the bottom of his hole. Mr. Sir returns and finds sunflower see evidence in Stanley’s hole. Stanley says that he stole the bag. Mr. Sir takes him to the Warden.
Mr. Sir tells the Warden about Stanley trying to cover up for whichever boy stole the sunflower seed bag. The Warden is not happy to be bothered with such a trivial issue. She takes out some fingernail polish and tells Stanley the secret to the beautiful color is that she adds rattlesnake venom. When her nails are dry, she does not have to worry about the venom. She proceeds to paint her nails and barely touches Stanley near the gash on his head, which tingles. She then proceeds to strike Mr. Sir across the face with her wet nails. Mr. Sir writhes on the floor in pain, and his face later swells up. Stanley then goes days without much water because Mr. Sir won’t fill his canteen and dumps out what water is in there.
Stanley uses stationary to write letters home to his mother. He tries hiding what he is doing from the other boys. He fills the letters with lies about how fun camp is so that his mother will not worry about him.
Zero sees Stanley writing letters and asks Stanley to teach him to read. They wind up striking a deal where Zero digs in Stanley’s hole for an hour a day so that Stanley will be more rested for teaching. In return, Stanley teaches Zero to read in the afternoons.
The reading lesson deal doesn’t sit well with the other boys. They give Stanley a bad time that the black kid has to do his hole digging work. Then things escalate to another boy picking a fight with Stanley. To this point, Mr. Pedanski has mostly been a hold hands and skip sort of counselor. But he happens to drive up in the water truck when the fight issue starts. He goads Stanley into hitting Zigzag because he should hit the bully. Stanley does not know how to fight, so his feeble hit does nothing. Zigzag then pummels Stanley with punches and leaves Stanley with a bruised and swollen head.
Zero was the one to pull Zigzag off of Stanley by using his arm for a choke hold. The Warden came over and proceeds to question Zero’s intellect while Mr. Pedanski calls him stupid. The Warden says that Stanley needs to dig his own holes and Mr. Pedanski says hole digging is all Zero is good for. Zero says that he is done digging holes and proceeds to smack Mr. Pedanski over the head with his shovel. Zero walks off with his shovel, but no canteen. The counselors leave Zero to his walking because he will have to come back for water or die of thirst.
The counselors then decide that they should remove Zero’s files from existence to the best of their ability. Zero was on his own and no one would come looking for him, so the easiest way to explain his disappearance would be to pretend that he was never there.
Stanley realizes that he never should have let Zero dig his hole. If Zero had enough energy to learn, he should have had enough energy to teach.
Stanley feels terrible while he thinks about Zero alone and dying of thirst, so he sets out to find Zero. He attempted to drive the water truck for his escape, but he didn’t know how to drive and drove it into a hole.
Stanley does find Zero under an old boat. Zero had been drinking “sploosh” out of jars that were under the boat. Stanley has some with Zero, but then discovers it was the last jar. The sploosh was canned peaches that Katherine Barlow used to make when she lived on the lake before it was dry.
Zero has horrible stomach pains and Stanley thinks that he got bacteria from the sloosh jars. Zero loses his ability to stand up. Zero seems near death. Stanley carries him to the top of a mountain. Unbeknownst to Stanley and Zero, this was a turning point in their fortunes. Zero’s ancestor was the gypsy, so Stanley carrying Zero fulfills the end of the bargain that his great-great-grandfather was unable to complete.
The mountaintop has some water that they drink while still filled with dirt because they can’t filter it. Stanley also starts digging up wild onions that they eat. Seemingly the onions bring Zero back to health.
Zero confesses that he was the one that stole the shoes that wound up getting Stanley sent to Camp Green Lake. But in the bits and pieces of Zero’s stories, Zero was a homeless boy that needed a pair of shoes. He could not read, so he did not know that the shoes were for a fundraiser.
Both boys are in good health and decide to set out on a quest for digging up whatever the Warden has clearly been looking for on the lake. Stanley thinks that it might be a treasure from an outlaw of old.
Stanley does the digging in the middle of night while Zero sneaks back to camp to get water from the shower faucet.
The Warden, Mr. Sir, and Mr. Pedanski arrive on the scene just as Stanley digs up an old suitcase.
Since Stanley seems to have dug up a yellow spotted lizard nest along with the suitcase, the counselors wait for the lizards to kill the boys before they take the suitcase. The lizards weren’t biting the boys as anticipated, so they end up waiting a lot longer than expected.
While they are waiting, Stanley’s lawyer (that he didn’t know he had) and the Attorney General arrive on the scene. The lawyer takes Stanley and Zero away from Camp, along with the mystery suitcase that was apparently Stanley’s great-great grandfather’s suitcase.
The story ends with a scene in Stanley’s family’s home. Stanley’s father struck it big with a foot odor cure, so they are having a small party. Zero is on the floor of the living room with his mother quietly singing to him.

Other Books in Series:

Stanley Yelnats’ Survival Guide to Camp Green Lake (Book 1.5)
Small Steps (Book 2)