Holes

Holes
Louis Sachar
Random House Children's Books
Copyright: 2000
Pages: 240
Reading Level: 10-11 years
Genre: fiction
Summary:
Stanley Yelnats is an over weight boy who gets accused of stealing "Sweet Feet's" shoes that were on auction to raise money for the poor. His sentence is to go to Camp Green Lake instead of going to jail. Green Lake used to be a lake with a thriving town, but it started to dry up 110 years ago. Now it is a juvenile correction camp where each boy digs a hole six feet deep and six feet wide every day. Every boy had a nickname which they went by instead of their given name. Louis, or Caveman, has a hard time adjusting to life digging holes everyday with a limited amount of water and only a four minute shower. Stanley finds a lipstick tube with the initals KB on it and gives it to one of his friends who plants it the next day to get the whole day off of digging. Group D digs in the same area for quite some time, but eventually the warden gives up hope of finding anything else in that area. Stanley gets a letter from home and Zero asks him what it says and asks Stanley if he would teach him how to read. Stanley says no at first, but after he takes the blame for stealing sunflower seeds, Zero digs part of his hole for him. Stanley and Zero make a deal where Zero digs part of Stanley's hole for him and Stanley will teach Zero how to read. They go on in this arrangement and one day the other guys in group D get fed up that Stanley doesn't have to dig all of his hole. Emotions rise and they get into a fight. Zero ends up hitting their councilor with his shovel and running away. The warden, Mr. Sir, and Mom (their councilor) ask Stanley if he knows where Zero ran off to, but when he denies knowledge, they plan on destroying the record of "Hector Zeroni," Zero's real name. A few days later, Stanley decides to steal the water truck, but ends up running it into a hole. He gets out of the car and runs away to find Zero. He comes across a boat called the Mary Lou and underneath is Zero, hiding from the sun and surviving off Kissin' Kate's home made peaches. They decide to go to the top of a mountain that looks like a thumb, which is where Stanley thinks his great grandpa survived after he was robbed by Kissin' Kate. Stanley and Hector go to the mountain, but Hector gets sick from the germs that have been living in the peaches. Stanley has to carry him up the rest of the way (which breaks his great, great grandpa's curse for not carrying madam Zeroni up the mountain after getting one of her pigs). Stanley and Hector live off wild onions for  a week and decide to dig one last hole and go back to camp to dig up Kissin' Kate's buried treasure. After they dig up the treasure, the warden shines a light on them and demands that they give her the treasure. When the light is on them, the warden sees yellow spotted lizards hanging out on their clothes and in their hair. She decides to wait the lizards out since she believes Stanley and Zero will eventually be killed by the lizards, but is disappointed when Stanley's lawyer shows up and the two are still alive. The lawyer came the day before to get Stanley, but the warden told her that he wasn't fit to leave and that the lawyer didn't have the proper paperwork. The warden spins the situation and tells the lawyer that Stanley and Zero stole her suitcase from her room that morning and ran into the hole to hide. The lawyer doesn't believe this especially after Hector says that the suitcase has Stanley's name on it. Stanley and Hector both get out of camp and go home (Hector is able to find his mom) and are rich.
Recommendations and Conflict:
I would recommend this book to a fourth grader who hasn't read holes. One conflict I see in this book is that the adults want to kill the kids to get the money. Also it talks about Hector living on the streets as a five year old and having been abandoned by his mom.
Reactions:
I enjoyed this book  better than the movie. It was believable, but many of the images in my head were contradicted by what was written.