K EY Camp Green LakeStanleyZero Mrs. Zeroni Great grandfather Grandfather

K EY C ONTINUED LuckHome Hole DigChest Lipstick

K EY C ONTINUED ShoesCrimeSam Kissin’ Kate Barlow

P LOT O VERVIEW Holes is a novel about a boy named Stanley who has lost his way. His family’s bad luck due to his great-great grandfather, has caused them to struggle economically. With a cursed ancestry, Stanley is unjustly accused of a crime and sent to a character-building detention center called Camp Green Lake to dig holes. There he makes new friends and finds the secret of Camp Green Lake. He discovers the warden’s ulterior motives and why he is forced to dig holes every day. Attempting to break the curse of his family, he faces many challenges along the way. Through this he “digs up” the meaning behind the detention center, and ultimately, the purpose of his life.

Stanley is a teenage boy who was blamed for a crime, but it was not his fault.

Stanley thinks he was blamed because his great grandfather broke a promise to a woman named Mrs. Zeroni. His family now has bad luck because of the broken promise.

An older boy threatened to beat Stanley up one day after school which caused him to miss his school bus. Stanley had to walk home.

As he walked, a pair of shoes hit Stanley. It looked like they had fallen from the sky.

It turns out that the shoes belonged to a famous baseball player who donated them to a homeless shelter. Stanley was arrested because the police thought he stole them.

Stanley is then sent to Camp Green Lake, which is a place with no actual lake. It is a desert that troubled boys are sent to each dig one hole every day.

The people who run Camp Green Lake are mean. Stanley begins to believe that they are looking for something in the desert, and that is why they are forced to dig holes.

Stanley gets along with some of the boys at Camp Green Lake. His best friend is a boy named Zero, but the other boys make fun of him.

After a few months at Camp Green Lake, Stanley digs up an old tube of lipstick.

Stanley’s best friend Zero runs away in the desert because he is tired of digging holes every day.

Stanley goes looking for Zero and finds him. They survive in the desert for awhile drinking what Zero calls “sploosh” (mashed up peaches in a jar) and eating onions.

They make it back to Camp Green Lake and start digging where Stanley found the old tube of lipstick. They think they will find something else if they keep digging.

Stanley and Zero dig all night and find a chest with Stanley’s name on it.

The chest belonged to his great grandfather and was stolen by an outlaw long ago. Her name was “Kissin” Kate Barlow.

A long time ago, Kate got very angry because the townspeople killed the man she loved named Sam. Racism was still big in that time and the townspeople did not like that Sam, who was black, loved Kate, who was white.

Kate was so mad about Sam’s death that she robbed and killed people. After robbing Stanley’s Grandfather, she buried the chest and then died.

The mean people that ran Camp Green Lake knew that the chest Kate had buried was somewhere close by. They made the troubled boys dig holes to find it.

The chest was full of money and many other items that were valuable.

Stanley is then proven innocent and immediately allowed to leave Camp Green Lake. He convinces the police to let Zero leave too.

Stanley’s families’ bad luck is finally broken That is because he was friends with Zero who’s great- great grandmother was Mrs. Zeroni.

Stanley leaves Camp Green Lake happy and with enough money to help his family and Zero live a better life.

R ESOURCES Sachar, Louis. Holes. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, Print. "Tar Heel Reader." Tar Heel Reader RSS. WordPress Entries, n.d. Web. 10 Nov "Holes." Barnes & Noble. N.p., n.d. Web. 10 Nov