Holes (novel)

This article is about the novel. For the film based on the novel, see Holes (film).

Holes
Holes first edition cover.
Author(s)	Louis Sachar
Cover artist	Vladimir Radunsky
Country	United States of America
Language	English
Genre(s)	Adventure, Satire
Publisher	Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Publication date	August 20, 1998
Media type	Print (Hardback & Paperback)
Pages	241 pp (first edition) 233 pp (second edition) 497 pp (on iPad)
ISBN	9780374982655
OCLC Number	38002572
Dewey Decimal	[Fic] 21
LC Classification	PZ7.S1185 Ho 1998
Followed by	Stanley Yelnats' Survival Guide to Camp Green Lake Small Steps

Holes (1998) is a Newbery Medal-winning novel by Louis Sachar. It was adapted into a screenplay for the 2003 film by Walt Disney Pictures.^[1] In 2006, Sachar published Small Steps, a companion novel featuring one of the characters from Holes.^[2]

Plot

At the beginning of the story, Stanley Yelnats IV, a timid, fat boy supposedly affected by a family “curse”, has been wrongly accused of stealing shoes belonging to the baseball player Clyde Livingston from a charity auction, and sentenced to Camp Green Lake, a juvenile detention and correction facility where boys of similar age are forced to dig holes to “build their character.”

There, Stanley learns that the warden of Camp Green Lake is searching for the buried treasure of Wild West outlaw “Kissin’ Kate Barlow,” in connection with whom Stanley finds a lipstick tube inscribed with the initials “KB”. According to the story’s premise, Stanley’s Latvian ancestor, Elya Yelnats, offered to marry his neighbor, Myra Menke, whose father would only let her marry the man owning the largest pig in the village on the date of her 15th birthday. Elya’s friend the Gypsy Madame Zeroni, though opposed to his marrying her, agrees to help him raise the largest pig in the village if he agrees to carry her, after the pig, up a mountain, and sing a lullaby to her as he did the pig, adding that he and his family will be cursed throughout their future if he fails. When Elya later becomes disappointed in Myra, he emigrates to the USA forgetting his promise to Madame Zeroni. Thereafter, every son of the family is supposedly cursed with bad luck. Camp Green Lake itself is said to be based in a now-dried lakebed, at whose edge stood the eponymous town until a drought co-incidental with the rivalry of town bully Charles ‘Trout’ Walker and man-about-town “Sam the onion picker”, an onion seller claiming that onions were good for curing all diseases, for the hand of schoolteacher Katherine Barlow, who turned to banditry after Sam’s death. The camp’s warden is later implied to be a descendant of Charles Walker.

In 1998, the warden’s decision that the boys dig more extensively for the treasure leads to several dramatic events, later causing inmate Hector ‘Zero’ Zeroni, a descendant of Madame Zeroni and among Stanley’s better friends, to flee into the desert. Stanley, in search of him, later finds him in a tunnel dug underneath an abandoned rowboat bearing the name Mary Lou, the donkey of "Sam the onion man" over a century before. Zero had been living on jars of very old spiced peaches that he had found in the boat, which he called "Sploosh". Upon seeing a mountain resembling a human fist giving the thumbs up sign, Stanley recalls the story of his ancestor Stanley Yelnats I finding “refuge on God’s thumb”; whereupon Zero and Stanley climb in search of water.

Atop the mountain, Stanley discovers a field of onions, which the boys eat, and a pool of dirty water, which they drink, and during their contentment sings to Zero that they return to Camp Green Lake to find the buried treasure. Upon returning, Zero steals some water and food from the kitchens while Stanley looks for the buried treasure. At this they succeed, but are apprehended by the warden and the camp staff, and become surrounded by a group of lethal yellow-spotted lizards. Because the boys have consumed onions, the lizards do not bite them; but being surrounded by the staff.

Unable to leave the hole they occupy, they remain in place until the next morning, during which an attorney arrives requesting Stanley’s release. When the warden demands the suitcase, Zero indicates the name ‘Stanley Yelnats’ written on it, its contents being the jewels, deeds, stocks and promissory notes stolen from Stanley Yelnats. I.

Protagonist Stanley IV then uses the bonds to buy a new house for his family, and Zero hires a team of investigators to find his missing mother; meanwhile, the drought at Green Lake is replaced by rainfall, as if in response to Stanley's fulfillment of his ancestor's promise (a suggestion left purposely ambiguous by the narration).

In a final scene, Clyde Livingston, along with the Yelnats and Zeroni families, celebrates the success of Stanley’s father's antidote to foot odor, composed of preserved and fermented spiced peaches and named "Sploosh" by Zero. The warden is forced to sell Camp Green Lake to the state government, who turns it into a Girl Scout camp, a coincidence since Mr. Sir, a head of the camp, told the campers that "this isn't a Girl Scout camp", referring to the backbreaking digging.

Setting

Holes takes place at Camp Green Lake in Texas. The town used to be bythe largest lake in the state, but is now a dry lakebed. The draught happened after Elya Yelnats failed to carry Madame Zeroni up the mountain and sing to her. However, after Stanley, the great-great-grandson of Elya, carried Zero, a descendant of Madame Zeroni up the mountain and sang to him in an attempt to lift the curse, a drop of rain fell in the lakebed of Green Lake for the first time in over a century.

Characters

Stanley Yelnats

Stanley is the main character in 'Holes'. Stanley is white, has curly hair and is overweight. He is from a poor family and lives with his mother and father. He doesn't have any siblings. He is 14 years old. Stanley is a good boy, and when he grows up he wants to work for the F.B.I. Before being sent to Camp Green Lake, Stanley lived a normal life, except he was bullied at school and had no friends. He gets sent to Camp Green Lake because he was in the wrong place at the wrong time: the police thought he stole a pair of shoes, that belonged to a baseball player, from a charity auction. At Camp Green Lake he lives in D Tent with X-Ray, Armpit, Squid, Zig-zag, Zero, and Magnet. His closest friend at Camp is Zero. Stanley teaches Zero to read. In his free time at Camp he writes letters to his Mom and he receives letters from her. Stanley is a nice, young, talented and friendly person. He does not fight like the other boys at camp do and he does as he is told.

Hector Zeroni

Zero is a quite silent boy who barely speaks to anyone besides Stanley. People always look down on him and think he is stupid albeit he's a really brilliant, prudential boy. Zero always finishes digging his hole first before anyone else. He is younger than Stanley, has dark skin and was homeless before he was sent to camp. He is illiterate at the start of Stanley's time at Camp Green Lake; later, Stanley offers to teach Zero how to read in exchange for Zero digging part of Stanley's hole each day. This trade is met with criticism from the other boys at Camp Green Lake. Near the end of the story, Zero reveals that it was he who stole Clyde Livingston's sneakers from a shop and threw them off a bridge, where they then landed on Stanley's head as he was walking home from school.

Film adaptation

Main article: Holes (film)

In 2003, Disney released a film version of Holes, which was directed by Andrew Davis and written by Louis Sachar. The film was a modest success in the box office and a critical success.

References

1. ^ http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0311289/fullcredits
2. ^ http://www.bookbrowse.com/reviews/index.cfm?book_number=1742

Sequel

A sequel called Small Steps was published in 2006 by Louis Sachar.

External links

• Louis Sachar's website for Holes

Awards
Preceded by Out of the Dust	Newbery Medal recipient 1999	Succeeded by Bud, Not Buddy
Preceded by New category	Winner of the William Allen White Children's Book Award Grades 6–8 2001	Succeeded by Bud, Not Buddy