Holes (novel)

Holes

File:Holes.jpg Holes paperback cover
Author	Louis Sachar
Language	English
Publisher	Yearling
Publication place	United States
Pages	256 pages
ISBN	0440414806
Followed by	Small Steps

Holes is a Newbery Medal-winning novel by Louis Sachar. It was later adapted into a screenplay for the 2003 film by Walt Disney Pictures, which starred Sigourney Weaver and Jon Voight. In 2006, Sacher published Small Steps, a companion novel.

Plot summary

The story's protagonist, Stanley Yelnats, is wrongfully convicted of stealing a pair of sneakers donated to a charity by a celebrity, and is sentenced to 18 months of service at Camp Green Lake, a boy's juvenile detention center in Texas. There, each inmate must spend his day in the dry, desert-like lake bed digging a hole five feet deep and five feet in diameter (~98 cu ft / 2.8 cu m).

Backstory

The book's contemporary plot is closely tied to two backstories, occurring 110 years ago. The first tells of Stanley's great great grandfather Elya Yelnats and his son; the second shows the history of Green Lake in the American West.

Elya Yelnats was originally from Latvia, where in his youth he became attached to a young woman named Myra Menke. However, he could not compete with another suitor, the local butcher Igor Barkov, who offered a pig to Myra's father in exchange for her. Depressed, Elya visited Madame Zeroni, an old Gypsy friend. She warned him that Myra was shallow-minded and that he should pursue a future in America, like her son had, but after he persisted she agreed to help him. Giving Elya one of her pigs, she instructed him to each day carry it up the mountain, let it drink from a stream, and sing a particular song to it.

He was to do this until Myra's birthday, and as a result his pig would be fat enough to please Myra's father. Madame Zeroni, who was crippled, also requested that when Elya was done, he would carry her up the mountain, let her drink from the stream, and sing the song. She warned him, however, that if he did not do this, he and his descendants would be cursed forever. He agreed to all the conditions of the agreement since he liked Madame Zeroni and would be more than happy to do so.

Elya obeyed Madame Zeroni's instructions up to the last day. However, he decided not to take the pig up on Myra's birthday (instead choosing to take a shower so as not to smell like a pig), and so both Elya's and Igor's pigs ended up weighing the same, leaving the decision of whom to marry to Myra. When Myra couldn't choose between the two and began a number guessing game, Elya grew disgusted, leaving the pig as a wedding present and going to America. It was not until much later that he realized he failed to fulfill Madame Zeroni's request.

Elya got married in America; however, his life seemed to be plagued by all kinds of bad luck. He began to believe it was the curse. Hoping to change his fortune, he attempted to find Madame Zeroni's son (though he wasn't sure if he should carry her son up a mountain and sing him the song), but never found him. His wife named their son Stanley, because she noticed that was Yelnats backwards. This naming became a tradition, so that the Stanley in the main story line is actually Stanley Yelnats IV. Elya translated the song that he sang to the pig into English while his wife changed it a bit to make it rhyme. The song and his story was passed from generation to generation.

Stanley Yelnats I became very wealthy on the stock market, seeming not to be affected by the curse. This did not last, as his entire fortune was stolen by the outlaw Kissin' Kate Barlow. After the robbery, he was left wandering in the desert for three weeks. In his delirium he said he survived because, "I found refuge on God's thumb." After his full recovery, he did not remember what he had meant.

The second thread concerns Katherine Barlow, the schoolteacher at the town of Green Lake. She was famous for her spiced peaches. Katherine was being courted by a wealthy man named Charles Walker, who was often nicknamed "Trout" due to his smelly feet. There was also a Negro in the town, an onion peddler named Sam, who obtained his onions from a secret field. Katherine gave Sam some of her peaches in exchange for repairing the school's leaky roof. There were other problems with the schoolhouse, and Katherine kept giving Sam peaches in exchange for repairs. He eventually ran out of things to fix.

One day, Katherine said that her heart was broken, and Sam fixed it by kissing her. Unfortunately, they were seen. Since Sam was African-American and Katherine Caucasian, the next day a racist mob formed, led by Charles Walker. The mob destroyed the schoolhouse and wanted to have Sam hanged. Katherine vainly attempted to have the sheriff stop the mob, but he replied that Sam kissing Katherine had been illegal and that a hanging was required. He offered to ignore this if Katherine would give him a kiss. She refused. Sam and Katherine attempted to escape in Sam's rowboat. However, they were pursued by a motor boat, which collided with Sam's boat and sank it. Sam was shot and Katherine was rescued. Three days later Katherine killed the sheriff and gave him an ironic kiss. She became a notorious outlaw, pulling off many robberies (including the robbery of Stanley I), and was known as Kissin' Kate Barlow. After twenty years, Kate came back to Green Lake and buried her accumulated wealth.

During those 20 years, Green Lake was struck with a drought which began on the day that Sam was killed. The lake dried up and Green Lake became a ghost town. Charles Walker found Kate and tried to force her to reveal where she has hidden her stolen goods. She refused and said that Walker could search for "a hundred years" and still never find the treasure. He forced her to search. A deadly lizard bit her on her first search and she died. The drought has continued up to the time of the main story. Each Walker generation since then has dug hole after hole, attempting to find the treasure.

The main plot

The main plot concerns Stanley Yelnats IV. His father, Stanley Yelnats III, is an inventor, searching vainly for a formula to eliminate foot odor. One day Stanley Yelnats IV is walking home from school. A pair of shoes falls out of the sky, from an overpass, and hits him on the head. Because of his father's project, Stanley decides to keep the shoes thinking they were meant as a sign of some kind. He is then arrested. The shoes were stolen from a homeless shelter, where they had been donated by baseball player Clyde Livingston for a charitable auction. Stanley is convicted of stealing the shoes and is sentenced to 18 months at Camp Green Lake, a correctional facility.

At Camp Green Lake, in the middle of a barren, desert-like lake bed, he must each day dig a hole five feet deep and five feet in diameter. However, if he finds anything "interesting" in his hole, he can get the rest of the day off.

The woman in charge at the camp is known as the Warden. Other officials include "Mr. Sir" and Stanley's counselor Mr. Pendanski. Stanley is in "D" tent, with several other boys. Each of the boys has a nickname. The boys are Rex ("X-Ray"), Theodore ("Armpit"), Alan ("Squid"), Ricky ("Zigzag"), José ("Magnet"), and Zero (he is initially never given a proper first or last name). Stanley soon acquires the nickname "Caveman".

On his second day of digging, Stanley finds a fish fossil. He shows it to Mr. Pendanski, but is told that it not the kind of thing the Warden is interested in. Stanley does not get the day off. Later, X-Ray comes and convinces Stanley that he give anything he finds to him. X-ray has been at the camp for over a year, so it seems proper to Stanley that he should get a day off, if any of them should.

A couple of weeks later, Stanley finds a tube with the initials "KB". He gives it to X-Ray. X-Ray is nearly finished with his hole, so he waits until the beginning of the next day to turn the tube in so that he gets a whole day off. The Warden takes charge and has the diggers work together to dig around X-Ray's hole. Stanley realizes they must be looking for something, and furthermore that they are searching in a different place than where the tube had actually been found. So nothing is found, and the camp returns to its routine. Some time after the incident, Stanley realizes the tube is an empty tube of lipstick and the initials "KB" stand for "Kate Barlow".

One day the water truck comes with Mr. Sir, a man who has recently quit smoking and has taken to chewing sunflower seeds, driving. Magnet steals his bag of sunflower seeds from the truck and is passing them around when Stanley spills them all in his hole. Mr. Sir returns and Stanley takes the blame by saying that he took the bag from the truck. Mr. Sir suspects that he is covering up for one of the other boys and takes him to see the Warden, but she does not punish him. When Stanley returns he finds that Zero has finished digging his hole for him.

Zero reveals that he cannot read (also homeless and orphaned with a missing mother) so he and Stanley come to an agreement: Zero will dig part of Stanley's hole and Stanley will teach Zero how to read. They become friends, and Zero reveals that his real name is "Hector Zeroni". Stanley does not at first realize what this entails, though the implication is that Hector is Madame Zeroni's descendant. One day Stanley notices an unusual rock formation far to the west. It looks like a thumb, and Stanley assumes this is what his great-grandfather meant by "God's thumb".

Eventually, the Warden discovers Stanley and Zero's arrangement. She is furious that Zero is helping Stanley with his hole. There is a confrontation and Zero runs away from the camp and the Warden orders all records relating to Zero removed to cover up his seemingly inevitable death. Stanley realizes his friend will soon die in the desert without help. A few days later, Stanley escapes in search of Zero. He finds Zero hiding under a boat, eating a stew of fermented spiced peaches, which he calls Sploosh; but Zero does not want to return to the camp. Instead, they decide to climb to the peak, to God's thumb. Zero is taken ill, however, and Stanley must carry him up. Stanley quietly sings the pig song as they climb. Eventually, the boys discover a natural water hole and a large bed of wild onions. They survive on the onions and water for about a week and a half.

During this time, Zero reveals that he stole Clyde Livingston's shoes, and it is his fault Stanley got sent to Camp Green Lake. When the commotion over their loss started, Zero abandoned the shoes. Zero later tried to steal another pair and was caught and sentenced to the work camp.

Stanley, on a hunch that fate is on their side, decides to return to Camp Green Lake. They dig in the spot where Stanley found the tube and finally unearth a suitcase. However, the Warden, Mr. Sir, and Mr. Pendanski discover them. They cannot escape the hole as the venomous yellow-spotted lizards suddenly crawl all over Stanley and Zero, but the fugitives are unharmed because they had eaten a lot of onions, and yellow-spotted lizards "don't like onion blood".

The next morning, a woman hired as Stanley's lawyer arrives at the camp, with an order for his release. She had come earlier to show that new evidence has been found that exonerates Stanley during the pair's absence. With that revelation, Stanley and Zero escape from the hole, while the lizards ignore them. The Warden then claims that the suitcase Stanley and Zero found is hers and that Stanley stole it. She is speechless when Zero points out that the suitcase bears the name "Stanley Yelnats" and, therefore, belongs to Stanley. Furthermore, Stanley's lawyer learns that there is no record of Zero being an official prisoner (as his records were destroyed). As the lawyer and her new charges leave, a rainstorm arrives and rain falls in the lake for the first time in over a century: the drought is over. Camp Green Lake is sold to the Girl Scouts.

During the confrontation with the Green Lake officials, the lawyer addresses the Warden as "Miss Walker", suggesting that she is a descendant of "Trout" Walker. By now, the reader is shown that the three families (Yelnats, Walker, and Zeroni) are apparently finishing what their ancestors began.

Stanley's lawyer explains that Stanley's father at last succeeded in a breakthrough, finding a cure for foot odor. Stanley's father hired her and began an investigation into Stanley's situation. The foot odor cure was found the day after Stanley carried Zero up the mountain. The implication is that Stanley broke the curse by carrying Zero (Madame Zeroni's descendant) up the mountain and singing the song.

The suitcase that had been found contains the belongings of Stanley Yelnats I, almost two million dollars in stock and jewels. Stanley and his family share the money with Zero, and they each become somewhat wealthy. However they also make a lot of money from the foot odor cure, Sploosh (which smells like spiced peaches), that Stanley's father invented. Zero is reunited with his mother, who has developed her own version of the pig lullaby.

Awards

• 1999 Newbery Medal
• 1998 National Book Award for Young People's Literature
• A Christopher Award for Juvenile Fiction
• A 1999 ALA Notable Book
• A 1999 ALA Best Book for Young Adults
• A 1999 ALA Quick Pick for Young Adults
• New York Times Book Review Notable Children's Book of the Year
• Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books Blue Ribbon Book
• School Library Journal Best Book of the Year
• Publishers Weekly Notable Children's Book of the Year
• Publishers Weekly Bestseller
• Horn Book Fanfare Title
• Riverbank Review 1999 Children's Book of Distinction
• New York Public Library Children's Book of 1998-100 Titles for Reading and Sharing
• NECBA Fall List Title
• Arizona Young Readers Award
• Colorado Blue Spruce Young Adult Book Award
• Florida Sunshine State Book
• Hawaii Nene Award
• Illinois Rebecca Caudill Young Readers Award
• Kansas William White Award
• Maine Student Book Award
• Maryland Black-Eyed Susan Award
• Massachusetts Children's Book Award
• Missouri Mark Twain Award
• New Jersey Garden State Teen Book Award
• New Mexico Land of Enchantment Book Award
• North Dakota Flicker Tale Children's Book Award
• Ohio Buckeye Children's Book Award
• Oklahoma Sequoyah Children's Book Award
• Pacific Northwest Young Readers Choice Award
• Pennsylvania Keystone State Reading Association Book Award
• Tennessee Volunteer State Book Award
• Texas Lone Star Reading List
• Vermont Dorothy Canfield Fischer Book Award
• Washington Evergreen Young Adult Book Award
• Wisconsin Golden Archer Book Award
• Wyoming Indian Paintbrush Award

Film

Main article: Holes (film)

In 2003, Disney released a film version of Holes, which was directed by Andrew Davis and written by Louis Sachar. It was a faithful adaptation of the novel and was a modest hit at the box office.