Holes

by Louis Sachar
Published by Scholastic 1998
Reading Level 3rd grade and up
Genre: Modern Fantasy
7 time award winner

Summary:
Stanley is cursed. Well, Stanley's family is cursed. They have been for a very long time. Way back when, Stanley's Great-great-grandfather fell in love with a silly girl. But a pig farmer in town wanted to marry her as well, and her father wanted a new pig so he said he had better come up with a pig or something better or he would be out of the race for the maids hand. But he was in love. So he went to Madam Zeroni an old gypsy woman and asked her what to do. He gave her a piglet and said if he carried it up the hill every day and let it drink from the stream and sang to it, both he and the pig would grow to be strong and he would be able to marry the woman of his dreams. She said on the day of the pig weighing he must take it up the mountain so it would be heavy enough, but instead he took a bath so he could look good for his woman. This was a mistake, the two pigs ended up being the same weight and the father could not decided between the two suitors so he let his daughter pick, Stanley's grandfather thought he had it made next to the old dirty pig farmer, but she couldn't make up her mind. He realized her head was as empty as everyone had told him and went out on the dock. He noticed if he hired on as a boat hand he could get a free trip to America. So he jumped on and sailed toward America, but then he remembered he had promised Madam Zeroni that he would carry her up the mountain and sing to her as she drank. She had warned him if he did not his family would be cursed for all of eternity. There was no turning back now, and that's how the curse began!
So here we have poor cursed Stanley, and as he is walking home from school he walks under an underpass and some shoes fall on his head. His dad being an inventor was working on a project in which he was trying to renew old shoes, so Stanley thinking they may help picked them up and started running home. Next thing he knew he was in a court hearing and being sent to Camp Green Lake, a juvenile facility for boys. Upon arrival he meets 6 new boys he will be living with for the next year and a half. They each suport terrible nicknames and Stanley soon recieves one. Caveman. So out in Camp Green Lake, it's not really a lake, it's a hot dried up lake bed in which the boys spend their days digging holes. Five feet by five feet. Everyday! This was to "build character." It's hard work and Stanley has a hard time getting into the hang of things. As they dig their group leaders tell them if they find anything interesting to bring it to them and if the warden of the camp likes it she will give them the day off. One day while digging he finds a fosil and shows it to their group leader. After their leader left the boy who tends to dominate to group comes to Stanley and they make a deal that if he finds anything else, he will bring it to him so he can have the day off. A few days later Stanley finds the top of a lipstick cover and he gives it to the boy, who gets the day off and the other boys spend the next couple days digging around the hole where the tube was "found." But Stanley knows where they should really be looking. Eventually he befriends the smallest member of the group. Zero. It is not until later that we learn his name is Hector Zeroni. Everyone, including the camp leaders believes his head to be empty and his place in life to be worthless, so when Stanley begins to teach Zero to read, it causes quite a blow up. Zero traded an hour of digging in Stanley's hole for an hour of teaching. This worked out great until the other boys start to complain and their is a fight and one of the boys punches Stanley causing Zero to react and tries to get him off by chocking him. The whole camp shows up at their digging sight including the warden. They tell Stanley to dig his own hole and that he can't teach Zero anymore because it stresses him out so much he is going to hurt someone else. They continue to tell Stanley how Zero is not smart enough to learn. Zero hits their leader in the face with a shovel and then runs away into the desert. Days later Stanley goes after him and finds him under an old boat nearly dead. With both of them run aways they decide to climb up the mountain on the far side of the camp where they saw a rock formation that looked like a thumbs up. The purpose for this was Stanley's Great-grandfather had been caught by Kissin Kate Barrlow out here and she had left him to die. He was found weeks latter and he said the only reason he lived was because he took refuge on God's thumb. So they venture up the side of the mountain and as they near the top Zero's body gives out and Stanley has to carry him up to the top where he finds a muddy mess in the dark. He digs a hole in the mud which fills with water and he gives Zero a drink to revive him. As he does so he sings the song his great-great-grandfather sang to his pig to make him grow strong. They find themselves in a field of wild onion where they live and revive for just over a week. Then they decide on a plan to get out of the camp without getting caught. But Stanley thinks that they should go find the hole where he found the lipstick tube weeks before. There is another story behind Kissin Kate Barrlow. She lived in Green Lake back in the day when the lake was beautiful and the town was green and fertile. She was the only school teacher in town and quickly fell in love with the man in town who sold onions. He fixed up her school house and one day a woman in town saw them kiss. This was against the law because Sam, the onion man, was a black man. So they burnt down the school house and killed Sam, after which Kate went bad so depressed about Sam and became the most feared bandit in Texas. She had been killed by a lizard while the man who killed Sam tried to find her loot. She had buried it somewhere in the lake and from that day on his posterity was still searching. This was why the warden opened the camp. So she wouldn't have to dig but she could get her money. However, Stanley was the only one who knew where it was. So they sneak back into the Camp late and night and find a suit case in the side of Stanley's hole. They pull it out in time for the warden to corner them, but soon realizes they are covered in deadly lizards. They stay in the hole for a long time until the realize all the onions they had eaten saved them from the lizards. So eventually they climb out, but luckily Stanley has a lawyer there. When Stanley carried Zero up the mountain he had broken the curse and therefore their family had it's luck back and his father's shoe remedy worked! So they had much money to send a lawyer to get Stanley and found him in this situation. It turns out that the suitcase had money that belonged to his great-grandfather. So they had large sums of money which they used to find Zero's long lost mother.

My Reaction:
I love this book because everything is tied together! Everything! It shares hope and the joy of friendship. It was hard to do the summary because there are so many elements to include, it would be better just to read the book. It draws you in with the different stories and the different time periods. It's fantastically written.

Potential Problems:
This book does have some murder and a slave related content. It has a lot to do with prejudice and misunderstanding those around us. But they are lessons that should be learned.

Recommendations:
I think every student in the world should read this book. Even if it is just for fun. It is so fantastic and teaches some very good basic principles about friendship and hope.