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Part One: You Are Entering Camp Green Lake
Chapter 1 (3-4)
Camp Green Lake, in Texas, is "just a dry, flat wasteland" where Wardens see to it that "campers" dig holes.
Chapter 2 (5)
Stanley Yelnats had been sentenced to Camp Green Lake, a reform school for boys, where supposedly boys reform by digging holes.
Chapter 3 (6-10)
Stanley, in a family joke, blames his "no-good-dirty-rotten-pig-stealing-great-great-grandfather" for his misfortune of being falsely convicted and sent to "Camp Fun and Games." (7) Stanley's arrest was occasioned by his father's attempt to invent a way to recycle sneakers. "Stanley Yelnats" is the same spelled frontwards and backwards. The first Stanley Yelnats earned a fortune in the stock market, but this fortune was lost to Kissin' Kate Barlow, a stagecoach robber, during his move from New York to California. Kissin' Kate Barlow left Stanley's great-great-grandfather stranded in the middle of a desert. Kissin' Kate Barlow kissed only the men she killed. (9-10)
Chapter 4 (11-15)
After an eight-hour bus ride, handcuffed and guarded, Stanley enters the air-conditioned Camp Green Lake Correctional Facility. (11-12) Mr. Sir instructs Stanley to dig a hole, five feet deep and five feet wide, every day, which begins at 4:30. (13)
Chapter 5 (16-20)
Stanley meets Mr. Pendanski ("Pen-dance-key"), his tent counselor, who warns him, "Don't upset the Warden." (16) His tent mates are Rex, who is Black and nicknamed "X-Ray," Alan, who is White and nicknamed "Squid," José nicknamed "Magnet," Theodore nicknamed "Armpit," and Rickey nicknamed "Zigzag," and "Zero." (17-19)
Chapter 6 (21-25)
Stanley was sent to the "camp," which has cold four-minute showers, for allegedly stealing a pair of Clyde "Sweet Feet" Livingston's sneakers, expected to sell at an auction for over five thousand dollars. (21-22)
Chapter 7 (26-40)
As Zero is coaching Stanley in the digging of his first hole, Stanley reflects on his family history. Stanley's great-great-grandfather was Elya Yelnats, an immigrant from Latvia. In Latvia, Madame Zeroni taught him wisdom in the choice of a wife, and in America Elya searched for the son of Madame Zeroni. His American wife Sarah Miller named their first son Stanley because it was Yelnats spelled backwards. (28, 39)
Chapter 8 (41-42)
Poisonous yellow-spotted lizards live in the holes the boys are digging.
Chapter 9 (43-47)
Stanley writes a letter to his mother about his "first day at camp" and a "swimming test" in the lake. Zero intrigues Stanley by asking about the red Xs on the back of Clyde Livingston's shoes. (46)
Chapter 10 (48-51)
Stanley finds a fossil, but Mr. Pendanski says the Warden is not interested in fossils.
Chapter 11 (52-54)
X-Ray (pig latin for "Rex"),the leader of the group of boys, instructs Stanley to give anything he might find in the holes that might bring a day off from digging.
Chapter 12 (55-58)
When Mr. Pendanski asks "Caveman" who is responsible for him being at Camp Green Lake, Stanley gets the boys howling with laughter by responding, "My no-good-dirty-rotten-pig-stealing-great-great-grandfather."
Chapter 13 (59-63)
Stanley finds a metallic tube with one closed end engraved with a heart and the letters "KB" and gives it to X-Ray, but suggests showing it to "Mom" the next morning in order to get more time off.
Chapter 14 (64-68)
Mr. Pendanski responds enthusiastically to the metal tube X-Ray pretends to find. He takes it immediately to the Warden, a tall, freckled, red-haired woman.
Chapter 15 (69-71)
As the boys are set to work digging where the metal tube was supposedly found, Stanley knows they won't find anything because he found the tube in a different location.
Chapter 16 (72-76)
Stanley received a letter from his mother expressing sympathy for the little old lady who lived in a shoe: "It must have smelled awful!" Zero is not familiar with nursery rhymes or Sesame Street.
Chapter 17 (77-79)
Frustrated, the Warden makes the boys work longer and faster. Stanley suffers from a gash in his head from Zigzag's shovel.
Chapter 18 (80-82)
Zero asks Stanley to teach him to read.
Chapter 19 (83-87)
X-Ray, Armpit, and Zero are Black, Magnet is Hispanic. He says his hands are like magnets. A stolen bag of sunflower seeds ends up in Stanley's hole. Stanley covers for Magnet by telling Mr. Sir that he stole the sunflower seeds and claiming that he ate all of them.
Chapter 20 (88-91)
Mr. Sir takes Stanley to report the incident to the Warden, who is irritated by what appears to be a simple incident about Mr. Sir's sunflower seeds. She has Stanley get her makeup kit with lipstick tubes and nail polish, which she tells him contains rattlesnake poison. After scratching Mr. Sir with the freshly polished nails, he writhes in agony on the floor.
Chapter 21 (92-94)
Stanley reflects on the stories of his great-grandfather, "the pig-stealer's son," who was stranded in the desert by Kissin' Kate Barlow. He was insane when rattlesnake hunters found him: he babbled about finding "refuge on God's thumb." Stanley notices that Zero has been digging his hole for him.
Chapter 22 (95-100)
Zero knows Stanley didn't steal the sunflower seeds, and Zero knows Stanley didn't steal the shoes. Grateful, Stanley offers to teach Zero to read. He teaches Zero the alphabet, and is surprised to find that Zero has such a good memory and a fantastic grasp of mathematics. Zero suggests he help Stanley did his holes so they will finish at the same time, then have a lesson. Stanley realizes the tube he found is half of a lipstick container. He puzzles what "KB" might mean.
Chapter 23 (101-03)
One hundred ten years previously, Camp Green Lake was the site of an annual Fourth of July picnic, when Katherine Barlow, a beautiful schoolteacher, was awarded for her spiced peaches. Katherine Barlow was not interested in Charles "Trout" Walker, who had an incurable foot fungus.
Chapter 24 (104-06)
Mr. Sir pours Stanley's canteen water on the ground.
Chapter 25 (107-11)
Sam's multi-purpose remedy is onions. Sam fixed Katherine's schoolhouse and did other handiman chores in exchange for peaches. When he kissed her hands, a neighbor "pointed her quivering finger in their direction and whispered, 'God will punish you!'"
Chapter 26 (112-15)
Trout Walker led a mob to Kate's door and shouted, "The Devil Woman!" The sheriff, drunk, announces a hanging because "it's against the law for a Negro to kiss a white woman." Kate attempted to escape with Sam in his boat, but Trout Walker shot Sam and Mary Lou. Kate shot the sheriff, applied some red lipstick, and kissed him. Ever since, no rain has refreshed Green Lake.
Chapter 27 (116-19)
Stanley teaches Zero to write his name, and Zero tells him his real name is Hector Zeroni.
Chapter 28 (120-23)
When Kate returns to live in a deserted cabin where Green Lake used to be, Trout Walker has married Linda Miller, one of Kate's fourth grade students. Linda Walker has red hair and freckles. Kate Barlow died from a yellow-spotted lizard bite.

Part Two: The Last Hole
Chapter 29 (127-29)
Stanley's great-grandfather blamed his no-good-pig-stealing-father for his ordeal in the desert. Delirious in the hospital, he babbled, "I found refuge on God's thumb." A formation near Camp Green Lake looks like a giant fist with the thumb sticking up. During a storm in the mountains, Stanley sees lightning behind the thumb, making it look like the thumb of God.
Chapter 30 (130-40)
Stanley suspects that he is in the desert where his great-grandfather was stranded, that the formation in the mountains nearby is God's Thumb, and that Kate Barlow, whose lipstick tube he had found, lived nearby. (131-32) Zero defends Stanley when the envious boys beat him up. Alarmed, the Warden arrives, and Stanley explains that Zero had been helping him dig is holes in exchange for reading lessons. Stanley realizes that they are digging to find something that belonged to Kate Barlow. (138) Zero hits Mr. Pendanski with a shovel, refuses to dig anymore, and runs off into the desert. (139)
Chapter 31 (141-44)
Stanley is digging Zero's hole, as well as his own, and he thinks he should go out searching for Zero, and they should climb up Big Thumb, or maybe Zero, like his great-grandfather, had thought to climb God's Thumb and had found water. (140-43) The Warden decides to destroy all of Hector Zeroni's records.
Chapter 32 (145-48)
Stanley escapes in the water truck, but crashes in a hole out in the desert.
Chapter 33 (149-51)
Stanley peers down into a hole and sees yellow-spotted lizards, then he spots the empty sunflower seed sack.
Chapter 34 (152-54)
Stanley heads for the fist with the thumbs-up sign and finds an overturned boat named Mary Lou. In the tunnel under the boat, Stanley sees a dark hand and an orange sleeve.
Chapter 35 (155-59)
Zero offers some "sploosh" (peach liquor) to Stanley and invites him into his shelter under the boat. Stanley and Zero eye the fist-thumb mountain formation.
Chapter 36 (160-66)
Stanley drills Zero on spelling as they walk toward Big Thumb. On their way up, the sun was behind Big Thumb, such that it looked like God was twirling a basketball.
Chapter 37 (167-69)
Stanley and Zero encounter vegetation on the mountain.
Chapter 38 (170-72)
Zero is exhausted, so Stanley carries him over his shoulder, but falls into mud. After dark, he feels a pool of water . . . and an onion.
Chapter 39 (173-76)
Zero confesses to Stanley that he is the shoe thief.
Chapter 40 (177-81)
Stanley and Zero feast on wild onions up in the mountain meadow.
Chapter 41 (182-84)
Stanley was fat and frequently ill before his life at Camp Green Lake. Zero had grown up taking what was needed for survival, so he didn't realize that taking the shoes was a serious fault. He just thought of them as old shoes, and that it was better to take old shoes than steal new ones. He couldn't read the sign that identified the shoes as belonging to Clyde Livingston.
Chapter 42 (185-88)
Stanley and Zero enlarge the water hole.
Chapter 43 (189-97)
Stanley and Zero find the hole where Stanley found the metal tube just before they reach Camp Green Lake.
Chapter 44 (198-203)
After sleeping in the hole, Stanley starts digging and eventually finds a suitcase, but the Warden discovers them.
Chapter 45 (204-06)
When Mr. Pendanski shines his light down into the hole, Stanley sees that he and Zero had been sleeping and digging in a lizard's nest. Meanwhile, Stanley's attorney and the Attorney General were asking questions.
Chapter 46 (207-10)
The Warden recalls having to dig for the treasure with her parents. Mr. Sir tells Stanley that his lawyer proved his innocence and came out to get him.
Chapter 47 (211-16)
The Warden is Miss Walker. The Attorney General and Stanley's lawyer are alarmed that Stanley and Zero are in the pit, covered with yellow-spotted lizards. As sun shines into the pit, the lizards move down into the shade and the boys climb out. The suitcase has identification on it: "Stanley Yelnats."
Chapter 48 (217-22)
Stanley's lawyer is Ms. Morengo. Because Zero's records have been destroyed, she is able to release Zero, as well as Stanley.
Chapter 49 (223-25)
Sam uses bottles of onion juice as a lizard repellant because "lizards don't like onion blood." Ms. Morengo is a patent attorney, so she did some investigating and discovered that Stanley's effort to fish his notebook out of the toilet conflicted with the theft time. Rain returns to Green Lake.

Part Three: Filling In the Holes
Chapter 50 (228-33)
The Texas Attorney General closes Camp Green Lake, and Ms. Walker sells the land to the Girl Scouts. The jewels in the suitcase were worth about twenty thousand dollars, but the stocks, deeds, and promissory notes raised the value of the suitcase contents to about two million dollars. Clyde Livingston discovers that "sploosh" has antifungal properties. Hector's mother sings a song much like Stanley Livingston's pig lullaby.

Gordon, Lee. Book Report 18.1 (May/June, 1999).
”Poor Stanley Yelnats. Wrongly accused of stealing a pair of tennis shoes from a charity auction, he is sent to a juvenile correctional facility in Texas. The camp is run by a Cruella deVille-type warden who has the boys taken to a dry lake bed to dig holes five feet wide and five feet deep. They are told to look for anything interesting or unusual; the warden will give them time off if they find anything. Stanley befriends a tentmate, Zero, and teaches him to read. Zero helps Stanley dig. Stanley discovers that the warden is searching for gold hidden by a bandit. Zero makes a run for it, and Stanley goes after him. After a few weeks in the hills they decide to return to camp at night, dig at a spot they think might hold the treasure, and escape once again. After they find the treasure, they are captured by the warden, who plans to keep the treasure and bury Stanley and Zero. Just in time, the state Attorney General shows up to free Stanley, discovers the warden's plot, and takes over the camp. This is a wonderfully entertaining book. The intertwined subplots are told bit by bit, so the reader doesn't figure it all out too soon. The humorous twists keep the reader hooked.”

Charles, Ron. “Teens and Adults Will dig This Deep Story.” Christian Science Monitor 91.11 (December 10, 1998): 17.
“Holes fills a worrisome gap on the bookshelf for middle school readers. Like a gawky teenager, this novel is full of adolescent anxiety and shy wit on the cusp of adulthood. Sachar descends into terrors we wish young people didn't have to face, but ultimately he floods this muted story with the kind of buoyant hope that's salvation at any age. The story opens when overweight, friendless Stanley Yelnats arrives with an armed guard at Camp Green Lake, Texas. He and his hapless family try "to pretend he's just going away to camp for a while, just like rich kids do," but this is no camp, nothing is green, and the lake has been bone dry for a hundred years. This corrections facility for boys is harsh, though simpler to negotiate than the daily humiliations of his old middle school. Under the supervision of a couple of cruel taskmasters, Stanley and his fellow delinquents are forced to rise early each day and dig enormous holes in the barren desert earth - to build character. ‘You're not in the Girl Scouts anymore,’ Mr. Sir barks at the parched boys every day. They come from a variety of backgrounds and races, but all are eventually burnt the same reddish brown. Wary tolerance slowly leads to tenuous friendship among the boys, and Stanley finds a kind of acceptance and even appreciation he never experienced back at school. Eventually, a thug named Zero asks him to teach him how to read, but that modest plan for self-improvement runs afoul of their outrageous warden, who paints her fingernails with rattlesnake venom. Throughout Stanley's trials, the story jumps into the wild west past of Camp Green Lake, when a racially motivated murder drove a sweet school teacher to bank robbery and called down a draught that's lasted a hundred years. Despite these bizarre details, Sachar is actually a master of restraint. He knows how to let acts of kindness seep into this bleak landscape without a drop of sentimentality. Shocking violence flashes across the page periodically, but he creates just as much terror in long passages of quiet waiting. And perhaps no author has ever had the nerve - or skill - to stretch out a frozen moment so long as his tense conclusion under the eye of poison lizards. The blistering desert setting of this story is wetted with just the right dose of mystery, and by the end, past and present are linked in ways Stanley (and we) never could have imagined.“