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Literature / Holes
Can you dig it?"With broken hands and withered souls, Emancipated from all you know, You got to go and dig those holes?"Holes is an extremely well-regarded -winning children's novel by . It's about teenager , who is arrested for a crime he didn't commit and sent to a juvenile detention center called "Camp Green Lake". At the camp, the boys are mistreated by the suspicious owners, who force them to continually dig holes in the middle of a desert with the same width and depth. And there are curses. And thumbs. And a story from the past about a romance destroyed by bigotry.Not so depressing or angsty as the premise makes it seem, but still a bit "adult" for a kids' book, hence its success. The narrative includes two other timelines in addition to Stanley's that appear to be almost irrelevant to each other, until the resolution when they all come together.In 2003, it was made into a fairly faithful film by Walt Disney P the script was also written by Sachar. It was directed by
fame) and stars
as Stanley,
and a good deal of other notable actors in bit parts.Sachar wrote a sequel called
which follows Theodore ("Armpit") and X-Ray after their release from Camp Green Lake.He also wrote a guide to surviving Camp Green Lake, .
These books provide examples of:&&&&open/close all folders& &&&&Holes& : Charles "Trout" Walker was this to his children and grandchildren, forcing them to dig everyday in the dried lake bed for Kissin' Kate's loot. He wouldn't even let them take a break on their birthdays or on holidays. This treatment is what led to the Warden (Trout's granddaughter) becoming such a bitter and cynical person. : Mr. Sir is constantly snacking on sunflower seeds in an effort to give up smoking. At the end of the book he lapses back into smoking again. : In the book, S his nickname, Caveman, is derived from his being a big guy. In the movie he's played by a young and skinny . They call him "Caveman" because he found a fossil, and the other boys said he belongs in a cave. Noted by the film-makers , which happens in the book due to all the strenuous hole-digging. , Stanley's actor, also mentioned in an interview that he tried "gobbling down Twinkies" in order to gain the weight, but Sachar himself told him that it was more important that he focus on depicting the character's diffidence. : Sam's death is pretty much the same in both versions, but in the book, Katherine finds Sam before the townspeople do and warns him of the mob. They try to escape together, but Trout's boat catches up to them, and Sam is killed while Katherine is dragged away against her will. In the film, she fails to get to him and witnesses Sam's death from the shoreline. In the book, a local townswoman witnessed Sam kissing Katherine and spread the word. In the film,
: The film includes a scene after Stanley and Zero run away where the other D-Tent members discuss whether they could still be alive. The fate of Mr. Sir: in the book, he just returns Stanley's belongings to him at the end; in the film, he's revealed to be a paroled ex-convict named Marion Savillo and gets arrested again for carrying a gun. At the end of the film, we see the other members of "D" tent at Stanley's house party, hanging out with him. No such thing happens, or is even mentioned, in the book. In the book, the yellow-spotted lizard that killed Kate Barlow showed up out of nowhere and bit her on its own free will. In the film, she grabbed it and made it bite her. : Inverted. The screenplay having been written by the original author, the film has some minor fixes to cover up plot holes in the book. In the book it's never explained how X-Ray tells apart his special shovel from anyone else's, since his eyesight isn't very good and Stanley thinks it's no shorter than any of the others. In the film, it has a orange stripe painted on it unlike all the other shovels. In the book Stanley finds his way back to the hole where he found the lipstick tube, but it's not clear how he found it in the dark of night amidst so many other holes. In the film he finds a large rock inside the hole, and puts it by the dirt pile to mark it for later. : Barfbag manages to get out of Camp Green Lake before Stanley's arrival (his departure leaves a vacancy which Stanley fills) by taking off one shoe and sock and tempting a rattlesnake to bite his foot. Can't blame him for screaming (we see this at t we only hear this from Zero in the book). : There's nothing stopping a kid from escaping from Camp Green Lake, but the escapee will end up dying of dehydration, seeing as the camp is in the middle of nowhere. A very arid middle of nowhere. Mr. Sir: You see any barbed wire fences? Any guard towers? No? That's because we don't need 'em. Go ahead, start running away. I won't stop you? You wanna run away, them buzzards'll pick you clean by the end of the third day. : Green Lake's sheriff, as when Kate goes to him for help, he's drunk on the job and asks her for a kiss. Before Kate shoots him, he's drinking a cup of coffee, possibly due to a hangover. : It turns out that the whole purpose of Camp Green Lake is to use the boys to find the treasure faster than if the Warden was doing it herself, as she had done through her childhood thanks to Trout, her abusive grandfather. Stanley finds the treasure chest, finds that it rightfully belongs to his family, and the Warden is left with nothing to show for her efforts, as Stanley refuses to let her look inside it, so all the effort she put into finding the treasure went completely to waste. See also . : Myra Menke, and her father Morris Menke. Also the bully who picked on Stanley in school, Derrick Dunne, only in the book and in one of the film's deleted scenes. : The Yelnats family. At least in the book. The movie makes it more explicit, with the grandfather . In fact, "Elya" is Louis Sacher's Hebrew name. : Zero whacking Pendanski across the face with a shovel. Also, in the film, Mr Sir falls into a hole when Stanley steals the water truck. At the end, when Pendanski goes back to the mess hall to tell the boys they won't have to dig anymore holes if they keep quiet, he falls into a hole too. Averted when Kissin' Kate Barlow allows herself to be bitten by a yellow-spotted lizard to save her from a worse fate than she would receive from the Walkers., and when the Warden slashes Mr Sir across the face with her fingernails. : In between parts of Stanley's story, it occasionally jumps back in time to tell the stories of Elya Yelnats and Kissin' Kate Barlow. :
gets an "And Introducing" credit. Which is a bit of a cheat: Though this was his first feature film, he was well-known as
at the time. : After Trout Walker had killed Sam, Miss Katherine found out the town had also killed Sam's beloved donkey Mary Lou. : How the boys get their nicknames. (Although many turn out to have .) : "Vacancies don't last long at Camp Green Lake." "If only, if only, the woodpecker sighs..." "It's destiny..." : Elya Yelnats, Stanley's great-great-grandfather, was in love with Myra Menke, but Myra's father would decide who she was going to marry (Elya or Igor Barkov) depending on the weight of a pig they bring him. When the pigs each man brings is of equal weight, Myra ends up being the one who has to decide between them and she just gets confused. : In-universe. Camp Green Lake once used to be a lush lake with a thriving town, but the town dried up with the lake, leaving only a barren wasteland. : Stanley not having a lawyer. Even if the family was too poor to afford one (the reason given as to why he didn't have one during the trial), he should have had a public defender assigned to him anyway.note& Stanley gets to keep the orange jumpsuit as he leaves Camp Green Lake, which is forbidden in real life and can ironically result in regaining your sentence. That could easily have been forgiven by the fact that all three of the people running the camp were being arrested. Everyone had other things on their minds. : It's stated that the pig lullaby rhymes in Latvian. As anyone with access to even Google Translate can tell you, it actually doesn't. : Green Lake's sheriff. He refuses to help Kate when the schoolhouse is being attacked and burned, instead simply asking her for a kiss, implying she
because she kissed Sam. He was drunk at the time, but it was very irresponsible behaviour for someone in a position of authority. Three days after Sam is killed, Kate shoots the sheriff dead. Trout Walker. He fancied Kate but she rejected him because she liked Sam instead. Being , he ordered the shcoolhouse be burned down and killed Sam . He ended up
in the drought that claimed the town of Green Lake, and spent the rest of his life searching for Kate's buried treasure and never found it, even making his children and grandchildren dig for it when they were big enough. : The Warden. She warns Mr. Sir and Pendanski at one point that if they can't get the boys to work any harder and faster, the two of them will end up digging with them. Then there's the scene where she slashes Mr. Sir across the face with her fingernails for bothering her about Stanley having apparently stolen his sack of sunflower seeds. And not to mention her treatment of the campers themselves, which can veer from
to downright obnoxious. : Pendanski appears to be a nice enough person when he first meets Stanley, only to reveal a hint of his
personality when he dishes out the first of many
moments to Zero. : Stanley is shown in a cold open shower with the water shutting off halfway through. The shower only lasts for four minutes, so Stanley quickly learns he better hurry. : Averted. The protagonist () is self-conscious and overweight. Also averted from the opposite direction with the vicious Warden, who is played by . : After Mr. Sir is slashed across the face by the Warden's venom coated nails, a camper asks him about his swollen wound the next day and promptly gets yelled at for it. Everyone quickly learns to not ask about it again. : As the
examples show, Pendanski
Zero was not the best of ideas. Zigzag also found this out firsthand. Zero, upon seeing Zigzag beating up Stanley, gets his arm around Zigzag's neck and almost strangles him before being stopped by Armpit. : Kissin' Kate chooses to
allow a yellow-spotted lizard to bite her rather than let Trout Walker kill her, or tell him what he wants to know. He would have tortured her for the information and she, by her own word, had . : The Warden. Her grandfather Trout Walker might be considered the , since although he's long-since died, it's his actions many years ago that both created the situation and plot of the story and made the Warden who she is (she is, after all, essentially driven to fulfill the goal he started). : A male example, Mr. Pendanski. A doctor, he acts as if he really wants to help the boys, and he takes on the nickname "Mom". But he's not really a doctor, and he treats Zero like crap. Later, he is willing to let Zero die to avoid scrutiny by the authorities. He was even willing to let both Zero and Stanley die at the orders of the Warden, when the kids were trapped with yellow-spotted lizards. : The fates of Mary Lou (Sam's donkey) and the Green Lake sheriff. /: Myra Menke. Madam Zeroni says her head is "emptier than a flower pot". But Elya is too entranced by her beauty but abandons her when he sees she's too dumb to choose between marrying him or Igor. Though, at least in the film, she didn't look too happy being stuck with Igor. : Mr. Sir frequently reminds the inmates that "this isn't a Girl Scout camp". In the epilogue, it's revealed that Camp Green Lake in fact becomes a girl scout camp. : At the end of the film, Staney prepares to drive away with his family and his grandfather's treasure chest as the Warden, in handcuffs, demands to get a peek of what she believes is rightfully hers. Stanley cooly replies with two words: "Excuse me?" : The opening narration remarks that if you get bitten by a yellow-spotted lizard, "there is nothing anyone can do to you anymore". When Kissin' Kate Barlow dies by a yellow-spotted lizard's bite, the narration comments that "there was nothing anyone could do to her anymore." : Stanley's grandfather, Stanley Yelnats II, in the film. Mostly due to being the only Yelnats that didn't appear in the book. He also made getting out all the exposition without the benefit of book narration much easier. :
example from the commentary of the film. Khleo Thomas, who plays Zero, tries to explain to his fellow D Tent actors the reason why Zero is in Camp Green Lake (stealing a pair of shoes from Payless, arriving before Stanley because Zero didn't get a court hearing). They don't believe him, due to confusion over the time frame. : Mr Sir: "This ain't a Girl Scout camp." Sam: "I can fix that." The Warden: "Excuse me?" :
that happens across all three stories, no matter how insignificant, has some bearing on the overarching plot. It's for this reason that the book is extremely popular choices for elementary schools to have students read: it teaches them about attention to detail. Taken to a ridiculous extreme in
where, by sheer coincidence, it turns out that peaches and onions are the missing ingredient in Stanley's dad's foot-odor cure. : Stanley is sentenced to Green Lake due to being found guilty for a crime he didn't commit. : Mr. Sir and Dr. Pendanski to The Warden (though the former is mixed with traits of
and the latter is also ). : Whenever Twitch sees what he calls " a really nice car", he starts twitching and itches to go for a joyride, though he never really plans to steal one. He thinks this of the Mustang convertible he stole that got him sent to Camp Green Lake, and he also thinks this of the Jaguar that Stanley's attorney uses in the film, implying he wants to steal it. Magnet warns him not to ("Don't even think about it, Twitch"). This even forms a , as when the Jaguar drives away at the end, he tries to run after it before being held back by Squid. : The Yelnats family. : Sachar makes a small cameo as one of the town locals who watch one of Sam's demonstrations. : When Zero whacks Pendanski across the face with a shovel and , the Warden tells Mr. Sir not to shoot him. Mr. Sir replies he wasn't going to, so they abandon him and erase his records, knowing he'll die in the desert without water, because he didn't take his canteen with him. : Even more so in the movie as the camp counselors are arrested. : Stanley nearly says the "F-Word" when he sees Mr. Sir pointing his pistol at him, which in reality turns out to be aimed at a deadly yellow-spotted lizard. : Inverted. "If Only, If Only", a Latvian folk tune passed down by Stanley's family, is a bitter, cynical song about getting shafted in life. But at the end of the book, we hear a much more uplifting,
version of the song sung by Zero's mom. : The "pig song" was originally in Latvian. When translated in English, it didn't rhyme, so when their son was born, Elya's wife Sarah changed the words so it did. Her version went:"If only, if only," the woodpecker sighs, "The bark on the tree was as soft as the skies." While the wolf waits below, hungry and lonely, Crying to the moo—oo—oon, "If only, if only." Sometime during the past 3 generations, it changed a little, and in the version Stanley III sang to Stanley IV, the second line went:"The bark on the tree was just a little bit softer." The Zeronis, meanwhile, translated it differently, rendering it:If only, if only, the
Reflecting the sun and all that's gone by. Be strong my weary wolf, turn around boldly. Fly high, my baby bird, My angel, my only. : The juvenile detention camp "Camp Green Lake" has no guard towers or fences, and most of the counselors aren't even armed...but the camp is in the middle of the desert, and has the only water for 100 miles. Anyone who wants to leave can leave, only to die of thirst or be forced to come back. : Kissin' Kate Barlow became one after the murder of her lover Sam. In the film, after Trout says he'll make her wish she was dead, . Moments after she says that, a yellow-spotted lizard bites her and she dies. : The film is dedicated to Scott Plank, who died during post-production. : Barf Bag pulled one of these to get out of Camp Green Lake in the hopes of provoking a rattlesnake to bite his foot. To make sure it happened, he took off his shoe and sock first. : Stanley takes the rap for stealing Mr. Sir's sack of sunflower seeds, and in doing so the Warden slashes Mr. Sir's face for wasting her time about it. As a result, Mr. Sir denies Stanley water for about a week or so. /: The campers are accused of getting much lazier after the Warden personally oversees their digging area, and she gets very annoyed and claims they're barely doing any digging now at all even though they've had to do more since she took charge of them. Once Armpit returns, telling her he left to use the restroom, she stabs him with a pitchfork. Luckily it's . She also slashed Mr. Sir's face just for wasting her time about Stanley covering up for someone over Mr. Sir's sunflower seeds. Then Mr. Sir takes it out on Stanley (or anyone who mentions his scar). While Madam Zeroni had good reason to be miffed about Elya forgetting about his end of their deal, did she really have to curse his completely innocent descendants too? : Zero gets fed up with Pendanski continuously insulting him and when Pendanski gives him a shovel, telling him digging will be all he will ever be good for, Zero snaps and whacks Pendanski across the face with the shovel, knocking him out. Stanley and Zero at the end when Zero reveals the treasure chest is rightfully Stanley's because it has his name on it (his great-grandfather's name actually, but because the family always name their sons Stanley, their names are identical), preventing the Warden from getting her hands on it. : "Dig It" for the movie, which is sung/rapped by the boys of Camp Green Lake, notably Stanley, Zero, X-Ray, Armpit, and Zigzag. : The boys insist on being called on their nicknames. Stanley wonders why anyone would insist on being called "Armpit". :
Zero says this to Stanley when the two are ascending the mountain. Stanley does look down, and almost falls off the rock face seconds later when he tries and fails to grab a handhold. :Pendanski: Rule number one: do not upset The Warden. The yellow-spotted lizards. Everyone, even the Warden and especially Mr. Sir is terrified of them and for good reason as they're
and have the . The only one to ever show calm in their presence was Kissin' Kate Barlow, and that's only because she had nothing left to live for. : In the film, Kissin' Kate grabs a nearby a yellow-spotted lizard and makes it bite her, simply to spite Trout. (In the book, the lizard was a lucky accident.) : Stanley is proven innocent, Zero is rescued and freed, and the two receive Stanley Yelnats the First's treasure. The Yelnats buy a new house and successfully create a wonderful invention, Zero reunites with his mom, Clyde Livingston befriends Stanley, and rain returns to Camp Green Lake, which is closed and turned into a Girl Scout camp. A lot of luck for the world's most unlucky family. : In the film, Mr. Sir's first name turns out to be . : Trout Walker towards Kate Barlow, big time.Trout: No one says no to Trout Walker! Kate: I believe I just did. : None of the bad guys make very good first impressions on the audience. Mr. Sir might as well have "I'M A VILLAIN" (or at least "I'M A JERK") stamped on his forehead, Mr. Pendanski acts all amicable only to throw an insult in Zero's face in the most disgustingly perky tone, and The Warden slashes her own employee in the face with her
tipped with rattlesnake venom. : Madam Zeroni is an old Egyptian woman with dark skin and a very wide mouth. She puts a curse on Elya and his descendants for not carrying her up the mountain so she can drink from the stream. : "I don't smell anything." How the Yelnats realize their most recent "cure foot odor" concoction worked. : Downplayed. Pendanski never hesitates to talk trash about Zero or lie about being a doctor, but he won't let Stanley die of thirst because of Mr. Sir didn't fill his canteen for two weeks. In the film, when Stanley and Zero are trapped in the hole and covered in yellow-spotted lizards, Mr. Sir warns Stanley's lawyer and the Attorney General not to approach the hole because of the lizards. : Madam Zeroni does one after she tells Elya to carry her up the mountain like he did with the pig so she can drink from the stream. The same laugh is heard again when Elya , while he's on the boat to America. : Despite being quite the , Mr. Sir has his moments of decency, and doesn't usually go out of his way to . Mr. Pendanski pretends to be the nice counselor, and the boys even give him the nickname "Mom", but his true colors show later on, especially in his treatment of Zero, who he mocks openly and takes advantage of every chance he gets. The Survival Guide lampshades this trope by pointing out that Pendanski's nice guy act makes him worse than Mr. Sir. Oh, and he's not a doctor. The Warden herself can sound very friendly and casual, but it's all in a passive-aggressive way that immediately lets whoever is hearing know she's definitely in charge. : In the film, the Warden is introduced this way. We first see her boots as she gets out of her Chrysler when X-Ray "finds" the gold tube. : The Warden paints her nails with polish made from rattlesnake venom. (And then scratches Mr. Sir with them when they are still wet, causing him severe pain and injury.) : Came out in 2003 and very faithful to the source material (helped in great part by Louis Sachar himself writing the screenplay). : Kissin' Kate Barlow was once a schoolteacher before becoming one of the most feared outlaws in the Old West. : A few examples. If Elya had taken his pig up the mountain one last time instead of taking a bath (due to not wanting to present himself to Myra spelling like a pig), his pig would have weighed more than Igor's and he would likely have ended up with Myra. Although, given how dumb she is, it's unlikely there would have been much of a relationship even if Elya had succeeded. If Elya had remembered to carry Madam Zeroni up the mountain before getting on the boat to America, the Yelnats family would not have been cursed. Stanley would never have ended up at Camp Green Lake if Derrick Dunne hadn't stolen his notebook. By the time Stanley fished it out of a toilet, he had missed his bus and had to walk home, leading to him ending up with Clyde Livingston's shoes. He also wouldn't have ended up with said shoes if Zero hadn't stolen them in the first place. Zero even says in the film that it's his fault that Stanley ended up at Camp Green Lake. Stanley would also likely have gone to jail if Barf Bag had not elected to provoke a rattlesnake to bite him, as otherwise there wouldn't have been a vacancy for him to fill. As a result, he wouldn't have broken the curse, never met Zero, never found the treasure or reunited Zero with his mother. Kate Barlow wouldn't have become a famed outlaw if Sam hadn't been killed. Stanley Yelnats I would also not have been robbed (at least not by her), and because he met his wife in hospital after said robbery, the three younger generations of Stanley Yelnats would not have been born. : Kissin' Kate Barlow was a sweet and normal school teacher who made delicious spiced peaches and only became the infamous bank robber history remembers her as because her black lover was lynched. The Warden's current activities stem from her horrible childhood under her abusive grandfather's thumb. More specifically, she's the granddaughter of Trout Walker, who went crazy in his search for Kissin' Kate's stash. He forced his children and grandchildren to dig everyday in the lake-bed with him for the rest of his life, even on Christmas. And even still, she's obsessed with trying to finish what he started. She's a bitter, cynical and vicious woman, but it's easy to see why. The
seems to be a minor theme in the book. For example, when Zero and his mother were homeless, they fed and clothed themselves by stealing. : Stanley Yelnats. : A funny moment in the film after Zigzag suggests the Warden has hidden cameras in the showers: Magnet: Hey, I guess that means she looks at me all the time, huh? Armpit: Man, he said 'cameras and microphones, not microscopes. : All the boys at camp, but most notably: "My name is Hector. Hector Zeroni." : Campers are treated so badly at Camp Green Lake that some deliberately get stung by a scorpion or even bitten by a small rattlesnake so that they don't have to dig a hole for the day.
Averted, however, in that they will never willingly get bitten by a yellow-spotted lizard, as there is no antivenom, and so anyone bitten by one would surely die. : Linda Miller, one of Kate Barlow's former students, evidently was one as she only married the much older Trout Walker for his money, only for the family to go from
when the drought hit Green Lake. : Madam Zeroni's curse. : At the end of the movie, after a century of curse-induced drought, it begins to rain at Camp Green Lake and the guys happily dance in it for a while before Stanley and Zero have to depart. : A bad luck curse on the main character's family due to an ancestor cheating a Roma drives the plot. The way to lift the curse is hereditary as well. Madam Zeroni's part of the deal was for Stanley's ancestor to carry her to the top of a nearby mountain to drink from the spring so she may become strong. A century later Stanley carries Madam Zeroni's descendant to the top of a mountain where he can drink from the spring, fulfilling the Yelnats' part of the bargain and lifting the curse. It may have just been an accident, but Kissin' Kate Barlow tells Trout Walker (the Warden's grandfather) before she dies that he, his children and his children's children could dig in the dried lake bed for the next 100 years and never find her treasure. Exactly 100 years later, it was found by another and the Warden was arrested without even seeing it. : The camp is actually a scheme by the Warden to uncover Kate Barlow's treasure without having to dig up the whole desert herself. : After Zero runs away, the Warden orders his files to be deleted to . This backfires when he's saved and returns to the camp, which turns the absence of any records of his existence into a
that leads the Attorney General to investigate and ultimately shut down the camp. : Charles "Trout" Walker was already upset for Kate rejecting him, but he gets really furious upon seeing she chose the black onion farmer Sam. : Near the end, as Stanley and Zero are being driven home from Camp Green Lake, Zero openly admits that he committed the theft Stanley was wrongly arrested for. Their driver and legal counsel turns in her seat and tells him: "I didn't hear that. And I advise you to make sure I don't hear it again." : More emotional than physical, but she at least feels pretty dead inside.Miss Katherine: It's so hot, Sam, but I feel so cold... : Stanley denies that anything major happened after Mr. Sir took him to see the Warden. Even after Mr. Sir shows up the next day with a swollen wound on his face. : Subverted in the film. When it seems Lump and Stanley are about to have a fight, Zero grabs the green 6 ball off the pool table as if to throw it, but when the ensuing fight is broken up by X-Ray, Zero puts the ball back on the table. Played straight later with the shovel Pendanski gives to Zero after insulting him one time too many. Zero
and whacks Pendanski across the face with it. : Having never seen the Warden before when she turns up to inspect X-Ray's discovery, Stanley is surprised to find she knows his nickname "Caveman". The other campers tell him that it's because she has hidden cameras and microphones around the camp, which Stanley thinks sounds ridiculous but can't shrug off the worry that it could be true. : All of the delinquents have nicknames based on something about them such as Caveman (Stanley, who's fat/finds a fish fossil) and Armpit (Theodore, really bad b.o.), based on their names like X-ray ( for Rex), something they do/did like Magnet (Jose steals a lot), and their personality (Mom, for Mr./"Dr." Pendanski). The town of Green Lake also has Charles "Trout" Walker and "Kissin' Kate" Barlow, who kissed the men she killed. : The father spends the entire movie trying to invent the perfect odor-eater. He finally succeeds not only at inventing it, but also at marketing. In the book he was trying to invent a way to recycle old sneakers. : When the Warden asks to see inside the trunk. Stanley: Excuse me? : When a local woman spotted Katherine and Sam kissing each other ( Trout was the witness in the movie), she tells them "God will punish (them)!" After Sam was murdered, it stopped raining at Green Lake, with the town and surrounding area drying up and becoming a barren desert. Who did God punish, indeed? : Zero admits to Stanley that it's his fault Stanley got sent to Camp Green Lake, because he's the one who stole Clyde Livingston's shoes in the first place. : Most of the other campers aren't bad people, they just made some bad choices. In D-Tent, Armpit and Zig-Zag stick out the most. : Pendanski. : The other campers had every right to be angry about the fact Zero was helping Stanley dig his hole while they were all still doing it by themselves. Stanley admits to himself later that he could have easily dug his hole by himself then taught Zero how to read. He just wanted to get a break. : Derrick Dunne appears to get away with stealing Stanley's notebook. Magnet escapes punishment for stealing Mr Sir's sack of sunflower seeds because Stanley takes the blame (Mr Sir found the sack in Stanley's hole). : Twitch. It's in his nickname. : Pendanski loves doing this to Zero, as does The Warden. While The Warden is worse, she's not around the boys 24/7 like Pendanski. When Mr Sir thinks that Stanley stole his sack of sunflower seeds and ate them all, and the Warden scratched his face for bothering her about it, he takes it out on Stanley by not giving him water for around two weeks when he delivers it. : For wasting her time about Stanley having apparently stolen his sack of sunflower seeds, the Warden slashing Mr. Sir's face with her fingernails. Fingernails she had just painted with rattlesnake venom, which is still toxic when it's wet and only harmless when it dries. : Yellow-spotted lizards. : Kissin' Kate's calling card. : Inverted with the boys in Group D. X-Ray is the unofficial leader, but he is described as being the second-smallest of the boys after Zero. Stanley is the biggest, followed by Armpit. : The Warden, Mr. Pendanski, and Mr. Sir end up in legal trouble in the end. An earlier example occurs with Pendanski. Pendanski insults Zero one time too many by giving him a shovel and saying it will be all he will ever be good for. Having reached his , Zero knocks Pendanski cold by whacking him across the face with the shovel. The denizens of Green Lake are on the receiving end of this when they brutally murder Sam. A drought hits the lake and it all dries up. The narration even states that all this can be seen as divine punishment. "Trout" Walker was one of the people to lead and spearhead the town's mob against Katherine and Sam. He
during the drought and spends the rest of his days digging for a treasure and never finding it. Stanley teaching Zero how to read prevents him from getting cheated out of the money that belongs to his family. Saving Zero from dehydration and carrying him up the mountain ended the curse on him. The
who tries to pressure Kate into kissing him in exchange for preventing the Green Lake citizenry from mobbing Sam is visited by Kate the morning after, who tells him she's changed her mind about the kiss. Then she pulls a gun on him,
This inspires her to do the same to her future victims as Kissin' Kate Barlow, being a thorn in the side of law enforcement for the next twenty years. : The main character says that he had a great-great-grandfather who had stolen a pig from a one-legged Roma woman, and she put a curse on him and all his descendants. The book tells us that it was actually that his great-great-grandfather had been given a pig by an old Egyptian woman missing a foot—who was also a friend of his. He was supposed to carry her up a mountain and let her drink from a stream. However, he failed to do this and he and his descendants would be cursed with bad luck forever. : The film in comparison to the book. Especially at the end. Not that much in the overall film, though. Several of the darker scenes are also in the DVD. For example, in the film and book, Kissin' Kate Barlow goes through a full-blown
and the killings are completely random. The film script was originally written by Richard Kelly, the man who wrote and directed , and it was very radically different from the book to the point of . Luckily the studio decided to change writers and go for a much lighter and more faithful script. The original script can be found . /: Kissin' Kate after Sam is killed. : In the scene with Kate where she's trudging along lonely in the desert, Sam appearing to her could just be a hallucination, or it could be his spirit actually coming to help her cross over. Viewers are free to interpret it as they choose. One strong argument for it to be an actual ghost is when Trout and his wife approach with the goal of forcing Kate to tell them where she buried her treasure, there's a blink-and-you'll-miss-it instant where Sam sees and reacts to them before Kate even realizes they're present, not to mention that Stanley saw both Sam and Mary Lou during his drive to the camp as they faded away. The whole plot about the curse on Stanley's family also fits this: there's no definitive proof that Madame Zeroni had magical powers and could curse Elya, and the Yelnats family could have simply had spectacularly bad luck by coincidence up until Stanley carried Hector up the mountain. : Insofar as a species can be this, the film has the terrifying, poisonous yellow-spotted lizards being portrayed by the adorable, friendly bearded dragons. : The Yelnats family's song. The book says the song rhymes and makes sense in its original language. : The staff of Camp Green Lake claim the boys are digging holes because it builds character. : A . It turns out one of the camp counselors was faking being a doctor. : Camp Green Lake, which is neither green nor a lake. It used to be, though. And by the ending of the book it is implied that it did become a lake again afterwards. : X-Ray points out one for Zero after Zero runs away from camp, saying that Zero's dead no matter what he does: if he stays in the desert, he'll die of thirst, and if he comes back, he'll have to face the Warden, despite her deciding to
him. : In the film, Stanley lives with his parents and paternal grandfather (Stanley Yelnats II), the only Yelnats generation absent from the book. : Played straight, although it's an intentionally derogatory nickname (his full name is Hector Zeroni). : The Warden is only ever known as such in the book. A brief walky-talky conversation between her and Mr. Pendanski in the movie names her Lou. : In-universe example - all the sons in the Yelnats family are called Stanley because it's Yelnats backwards. During the courtroom scene when the judge tells Stanley Yelnats to stand up, Stanley does, and so do his father and grandfather, because they're both called Stanley (Stanley's grandfather is Stanley II and his father is Stanley III). : Zero. Stanley teaching him is a major plot point. : Joked about. The kids see a cloud in the sky, the first they've ever seen in this arid desert, and start joking about how they need to start building an ark. It's all just to get their hopes up, as Camp Green Lake hasn't had rain for a hundred years. It rains at the end just as the attorney general closes the camp. : Green Lake's sheriff, who goes nameless in both scenes he appears in, possibly due to how . Suverted with Mr. Sir in the film, the Attorney General reveals his real name is Marion Sevillo. : X-Ray, as mentioned below. Also Armpit, as we find out in the sequels, and Caveman (Stanley) for halfheartedly telling a bully to leave him alone. The yellow-spotted lizards also count, as it's often noted that their yellow spots are actually too difficult to see on their body, and their more prominent features are their "red" eyes, black teeth, and white tongue. Camp Green Lake is neither green nor a lake, though it used to be an actual lake — until after the story. : In the film, Stanley bathes with his swim trunks on (the book doesn't specify if he bathes naked or not). Justified, though, since the shower has no walls and it's rumored to have hidden security cameras. : In the film, a flashback near the end shows the Warden as a girl, telling "Trout" Walker (her grandfather) she's tired of digging. His response: "THAT'S TOO DAMN BAD! You keep digging!" : The sheriff in the film gets one when Kate pulls a gun on him, right before she kills him. Mr Sir at the end of the film and stated by him each time. First is when Stanley's lawyer and the Attorney General return. Second is when the Attorney General recognizes him and uses his real name, Marion Sevillo. The first time you don't see his face when he says it. The second time, you definitely do. /: No characters ever realize this, but the narration mentions that both Stanley and the Warden have ancestors with the last name "Miller". In a book with this small a cast and this tight a plot, that can't be a mistake, so you gotta wonder... : Averted. Although the boys only refer to each other and later to Stanley by their nicknames, Pendanski refers to all of them, bar Zero, by their real names. Towards the end, however, he refers to Zero by his real name of Hector. In , we even get two of their surnames: Johnson for Armpit, and Washburn for X-Ray. Subverted by Mr Sir in the film, too: his real name turns out to be Marion Sevillo. Cue an
from him when the Attorney General recognizes him and uses his name. : Aside from Stanley and Zero, all the boys of group D are referred to either by their nicknames (by each other, Mr Sir and the Warden) or their real first names (by Pendanski - they are: , Armpit = Theodore, Squid = Alan, Magnet = Jose, Zigzag = Ricky, Zero = Hector, Twitch = Brian, and Barf Bag = Lewis). As mentioned above, we find out two of their surnames in . Armpit's real full name is Theodore Johnson, and X-Ray's is Rex Washburn. Averted with the Warden. Her surname is Walker, but the film reveals her first name is Louise. : The boys of Group D usually use their nicknames to refer to each other, except for Stanley and Zero after Stanley learns Zero's actual name. In particular, Armpit never likes to be referred to by his real name of Theodore. At the end, Armpit asks Stanley to call his mother and apologize on his behalf, saying, "Tell her Theodore said he was sorry." This is changed from the book, as it's Squid, not Armpit, who asks Stanley this favour ("Tell her Alan said he was sorry"), but it's still played straight, as the boys refer to each other by their nicknames rather than their actual names, except for Stanley before he acquires his nickname of Caveman. : After Stanley has learned to no longer expect water from the vengeful Mr. Sir, Mr. Sir surprises him by refilling his canteen. But then he takes it to his car and gives it back a minute later, still full. Then he waits for Stanley to drink from it. When he's so thirsty he can no longer bear it, Stanley pours the entire contents of the canteen, refusing to drink from it thanks to his suspicion. : Mr. Sir gives Zigzag an extra carton of orange juice for his birthday. Everyone is surprised that Mr Sir did it. In her first appearance, in both the book and the film, the Warden tells Pendanski to top off everyone's canteen, despite the fact that he had filled them moments before. In the same scene she also demands that for (she thinks) finding the gold tube, X-Ray should not only get a day off, but also double shower tokens and a snack. When Pendanski finds Mr Sir is depriving Stanley of water after the sunflower seeds incident, Pendanski gives Stanley extra water. This happens for about two weeks. : "X-Ray" is so nicknamed because it's pig Latin for his real name, "Rex". : The sheriff of Green Lake refuses to help Kate when the mob is destroying the schoolhouse, because Sam has broken the law by kissing her ("It's against the law for a Negro to kiss a white woman"). This lack of help allows Trout and his men to kill Sam. : The film adds Stanley's grandfather, who was mysteriously the only Yelnats generation not mentioned in the book, to handle exposition on the family's backstory. Kissin' Kate Barlow is made more sympathetic by only killing the people who were involved in Sam's death rather than random innocents. As mentioned above, Book!Stanley is overweight (but loses it due to the strenuous digging), but is quite skinny in the movie. This was due to the fact that it would've been hard to film a teenage actor gradually losing weight over the course of the film. : Though more a correctional facility than a prison, the delinquents sent to Camp Green Lake are made to dig very precise holes in the ground from practically dawn until dusk under the pretense of building character. : Zero. He only really talks to Stanley, and when he's affected enough by the others to do so. : When Pendanski won't stop insulting Zero even after Stanley has revealed that he has been teaching Zero to read, Zero takes the shovel Pendanski gives him and whacks him in the face with it, knocking him out cold. : The Yelnats family and Zero at the end, crossing over with . : Being kept in a regular suitcase that was buried underground for almost 100 years, Stanley the I's jewels suffered damage and the ink on the stock certificates faded, lessening their value. Therefore, after all the legal fees were paid, Stanley and Zero get less than a million dollars each rather than a fortune. Averted in the movie: it's kept in a treasure chest, and all the valuables are intact, giving millions to both parties. : Katherine "Kissin' Kate" Barlow. : Yellow-spotted lizards are regularly mentioned to have red eyes, but they actually have yellow eyes with red spots around them. : Madam Zeroni has no left foot. : Stanley steals the water truck to try and rescue Zero, right under Mr Sir's nose. He crashes it into a hole, but still, damn! : Elya forgets to carry Madam Zeroni up the mountain after leaving Myra's house, and it isn't until he's on the boat to America that he finally remembers he had to do it. Oops. : Stanley's grandfather asks Zero to confirm if he just said his last name is Zeroni, realizing his grandson had fulfilled his cheating ancestor's bargain and lifted the family curse. : The Walker family in the backstory after the murder of Sam. : The Mary Lou boat found by Stanley and Zero. : Right before Sam is shot in his boat, Kate screams his name. She then says it in a voice full of tears after the gunshot, and breaks into sobs. In the book, she's on the boat with him when he's killed. A worried Stanley yells Zero's name into the desert three times after Zero runs away from camp, as Twitch is arriving on the bus. : G-rated version where the Sheriff half-heartedly offers to run Sam out of town instead of hanging him if Miss Kate kisses him. She takes him up on his offer after she kills him—which earns her the nickname "Kissin' Kate" Barlow. : Kate Barlow originally was one. : Elya, after he realizes Madam Zeroni was right about Myra's stupidity. He tells her she can keep his pig as a wedding present and walks away in disgust. He doesn't just leave her behind for ever, he leaves Latvia behind for ever, going to America like Madam Zeroni's son. Barf Bag pulled one of these via a , where he intentionally got bitten by a rattlesnake to get out of Camp Green Lake, which led to Stanley taking his place. Zero, after being
one too many times,
and runs away from camp. Stanley too, when he steals the water truck and attempts to use it to go after Zero. When he accidentally crashes it into a hole, he continues going on foot. : Stanley Yelnats. It was originally a filler name used by Louis Sachar when he was writing the book, and he planned to later replace it with a more normal name. He never did, and the name even becomes a plot point. : The Warden and her ancestors have spent decades trying to find Kate Barlow's treasure in the dried ruins of the lake (she even mentions her grandfather forced her to dig through most of her childhood, even on Christmas) so much so that the
whole point of the camp was to use kid labor to do the dirty work and find the treasure faster. In the end all that effort was wasted as not only does she not get the treasure chest, Stanley denies her the dignity of even looking inside it. Ouch. : After Stanley and Zero get covered in yellow-spotted lizards, the counselors aren't sure whether to wait for the lizards to kill them, or to shoot, risk killing them, and have to deal with the Attorney General arriving to see it. : Charles "Trout" Walker and Clyde "Sweet Feet" Livingston both have terrible foot odor thanks to a foot fungus.
Stanley's father in the end comes up with a cure for it. : Mr. Sir's story in the movie.Mr. Sir: "Once upon a time there was a magical place where it never rained. The end." : Stanley teaching Zero how to read is what does in the Warden once and for all as Zero is the only one who noticed that Kissin' Kate's stash was kept in a case marked "Stanley Yelnats"—it belonged to Stanley's great-grandfather, but it invalidates the Warden's claims that Stanley stole it from her office. Also, Stanley giving the tube of lipstick to X-Ray and then suggesting him to keep it until the next morning. This leads the Warden to think Kate Barlow's loot is in the wrong place and has the boys dig there, which also tells Stanley that whatever the Warden wants is related to the tube. : Myra Menke and Trout Walker. : Poor Miss Katherine and Sam. : Stanley's assigned group at Green Lake (Tent "D") is sometimes referred to as "D Tent"—which sounds like an abbreviation of "detention". : Squid and Zigzag rat out Stanley to the Warden for him helping Zero learn to read but having Zero help dig his holes. This was after Stanley didn't squeal on the group stealing Mr. Sir's sunflower seeds. : In the film, the deadly yellow-spotted lizards are clearly played by bearded dragons, which are harmless and popular as pets. Averted by using CGI in the moments when a lizard has to act particularly menacing. : Stanley is sent to Camp Green Lake for stealing a pair of shoes, which by his account he found after they fell from an overpass. His best friend at Camp Green Lake is Zero, who was the one who actually stole the shoes and threw them off the overpass. Furthermore, Zero's ancestor placed the
on Stanley's family, and Green Lake is where Kissin' Kate Barlow buried a chest full of stock market documents that belonged to Stanley's great-grandfather. : In the film, at the very end of the credits, Hector "Zero" Zeroni quotes the curse his great-great-great-grandmother made with her accent and speech patterns. : The hole-digging plot, the Madame Zeroni/Elya Yelnats/Myra plot, and the Green Lake romance plot. : Camp Green Lake is smack in the middle of one of these. Mr. Sir lampshades it.Mr. Sir: "Tell me, boy, do you see any fences or guards? No? We don't need them. You wanna know why? We've got the only water 'round here for a hundred miles in any direction. Go ahead and run away, I'm not gonna stop you. But without water, you'll be buzzard food in three days." : The boys of Camp Green Lake ultimately become this. : There are
in the US that are just as bad, if not worse, than the one in this story. Lynchings like Sam's were so common at the turn of the 20th century, people not only gathered around them like circuses, they actually sent postcards of them. : Zero. : Invoked . X-Ray and many of the other campers get angry at Stanley because they think he's another white boy sitting around while the black boy — Zero — does all the work. The reader knows that's not Stanley's intention and Zero was the one to suggest the deal of digging part of Stanley's hole. The other boys don't. Sadder still, they only learn the truth once Stanley and Zero are confronted by the Warden and Mr. Sir, whom they tell what's been going on. The narrative also briefly mentions that the camp does not have a disproportionate amount of campers of one skin color over another, dissuading the possibility of racial profiling (at least on the camp's part) and implying that the boys are there for at least committing a crime. : To keep themselves from being held responsible for Zero's potential death in the desert, the Warden orders his files deleted from the computer. The task is easier because Zero was a ward of the state with no family, but it backfires miserably - with those records gone, they can't prove he's an inmate, and have to
instead of . : Trout Walker, so much. He was the son of the richest man in the county and owns the lake and all the land on its east side, and thinks he's entitled to anything (and anyone) he wants. He's also a complete idiot. The book even describes him as loud and stupid and proud of his idiocy. : Kissin' Kate Barlow began her crime spree after her black lover Sam was killed for kissing her. Her first victim was the sheriff who failed to prevent the mob from killing Sam. : Trout Walker, after searching many years for the treasure. : Stanley's main bully from school, Derrick Dunne, did this for him at the end.
Stanley's lawyer Miss Morengo explains that he's being freed because it turned out he has an alibi, which was corroborated by Derrick — Stanley couldn't have stolen Clyde Livingston's shoes because Derrick had dunked one of Stanley's textbooks in the toilet at the same time someone noticed the shoes went missing. : When not commanding the campers, the Warden either makes her own nail polish or paints her nails with said polish. She makes it because the secret ingredient is rattlesnake venom, which is still toxic when wet. : As Stanley and Zero are climbing up the mountain, Zero starts coughing and when he has to stop to vomit, it can be seen coming out of his mouth before cutting to Stanley. : Downplayed. In the book (but played fully straight in the film), Stanley and Zero each receive a little less than a million dollars due to the value of the papers from the treasure chest. : Occurs when Zero tells Stanley his real name: Hector Zeroni. : Miss Katherine, the white school teacher, fell in love with Sam, the black onion farmer. They're spotted kissing and when the people heard, they stormed Katherine's schoolhouse. Miss Katherine ran to the sheriff's office but he told her that it's against the law for a Negro to kiss a white woman. Katherine tried to get away with Sam but they shot and killed him. : Stanley and Zero fall into a pit of yellow-spotted lizards. But they don't attack, and it's implied it's because they were repelled by the boys' onion diet. : Kissin' Kate Barlow. Originally just a schoolteacher in 19th-century Texas, she eventually falls for the the , Sam. This results in not only a mob burning down the school, but Sam is sentenced to death for kissing a white woman. She then becomes the most notorious outlaw in the Wild West. Her first kill is the sheriff who . To a certain extent, the Warden counts as well. She had a rough childhood due to her grandfather abusing her and forcing her to dig nonstop for the treasure Kissing Kate robbed, not even being allowed to stop for Christmas. Evidently, this lasted to her adulthood. : Too much time seems to pass relative to the number of generations stated, between the time of Kissin' Kate Barlow and the main characters. : A very harsh example. Sam does up the schoolhouse for Kate, but after their kiss is witnessed, the schoolhouse is set ablaze and Sam is killed.&&&& Stanley Yelnats' Guide to Surviving Camp Green Lake& : Don't touch anything in a camper's private box. Or Zigzag's TV. : Remember that even the seemingly harmless ones were arrested for good reason. : Stanley notably asks the reader to keep an eye out for Barf Bag, who ran away, and tell him it's safe to come home. : Zigzag may be stuck in a , but thanks to it he always knows what the time, day, and date is. : The default answer for every question about an injury at Camp Green Lake is: "I slammed the tent door on it." This point is further emphasized when a quiz is held asking the reader how you got a black eye. Was it from a fight? Stepping on a shovel? Not bathing? The right answer is still "The tent door slammed in your face." : Stanley leaves Zero's name and history when going through the campers' bios, but anybody who read the previous book should know his story. : Armpit has a suggestion about the showers, that the four-minute shower should be changed so the water sprays for a minute, stops for one minute to allow them to apply soap, then restart for three minutes to finish. The suggestion is taken, but instead of three minutes of water, there are now only two, allowing the Warden to save a minute of water each. Also how Camp Green Lake got reopened. Stanley published his book, officials read it, thought "What a great idea!", and reopened the camp and another camp with the original staff back in charge. X-Ray adapted too well to Camp Green Lake and essentially became its inmates' leader. Now that his sentence is over, he has to return to school and finds it difficult to readjust to the outside world. : Not the camp, but Zigzag, who keeps a TV guide from the week of March 22nd, 1986 and reads it daily, informing everyone what will be on TV "tonight". : E-Z.
: At the end of Holes, Camp Green Lake is closed, However, now the camp is open again, and the in-universe reason why the guide is being written is that people read Stanley's book and thought that
: After leaving Camp Green Lake and having access to a working TV again, Zigzag doesn't watch any shows. "There's nothing good on anymore." : Magnet tries to escape by grabbing onto the supply truck and hitching a ride to freedom. When he turns up at dinner hours later, he merely asks for the ketchup and the others comply and never ask about it. : Stanley is implied to have a girlfriend now. : Armpit's idea for the showers was intending to make them a minute longer. They ended becoming a minute shorter. Barf Bag recovered from his snake bite, but ran away from the hospital because he thought they'd send him back to Camp Green Lake. He was unaware that his time in recovery counted as time for his prison sentence, and he had in fact completed it all. Now he's a fugitive. : "Magnet told Armpit where to stick his next idea, and it wasn't in the suggestion box." : Armpit is explained to have gotten his name not from being smelly, but because a scorpion once stung him in the armpit and he wouldn't stop complaining about it. (In the movie, it is because he's smelly.) Another example is E-Z, who is named that because of his initials, . : X-Ray was arrested for selling what everyone thought was cocaine and marijuana, but it turned out to be chopped up aspirin and parsley. However, selling aspirin without a pharmaceutical license was still illegal. : Zigzag got arrested because he was burning Styrofoam on his school's lawn, only for the flames to get out of control and burn down one of the classrooms. : Even though Mr. Sir went out of his way to make Stanley's life miserable after the incident with the Warden, he doesn't punish Twitch at all when he rudely interrupts him. Stanley figures this is probably because he knows Twitch is going to be suffering anyway once he starts digging his first hole. /: Zigzag is obsessed with the broken TV in the wreck room, even though it never plays anything. E-Z tries "changing the channel" and Zigzag smashes his hand into the dial button so hard, the ridges on it cut his hand open. E-Z himself got into Camp Green Lake for beating up a man and his dog because the dog pooped in front of his skateboard. By default, any of the personal items in a camper's box are immediately off-limits. : Twitch. On his very first day he decides to go poking through all the campers' boxes, blab to all the bunkmates, mouth off to the counselors, dig too fast and get himself tired, guzzle down all his water and run out when he needs it, get dirt in the camper's holes, and just as Stanley is escaping on the car, he hears Twitch say: "Hey, everyone check out " : The book has several quizzes, but most of them don't even have the correct answer. And the first quiz is very counter-intuitive. Your canteen has a leak. Do you A. Angrily smash your canteen. B. Quickly guzzle your water. C. Ask for a new canteen. D. Turn the canteen so the hole is on the top and drink from it that way. Answer: D Dirt will get into your canteen and some water will eventually leak out. C the counselor will just suggest you try D. The correct answer is B then A. The Warden knows you can't dig without water. You will be given a new canteen. : The book ends with a short presentation of all the boys in D-tent, why they were sent to Camp Green Lake to begin with, and what happened to them after they returned to their regular lives. The exception is Zero, whose section just says "For privacy reasons, no information is available" ?though from reading Stanley's segment it can be inferred that Zero now attends Stanley's high school, receiving extra tutoring to make up for his lack of formal education but otherwise doing very well (especially at math).
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