Holes
by Louis Sachar

1. Plot
Stanley Yelnats, a young boy, is chased by bad luck. Actually, his whole family is under a curse, a curse that began with his no-good-dirty-rotten-pig-stealing-great-great-grandfather who promised to carry an old woman up a hill. But he forgot and that´s why since then, everybody in his family is always at the wrong place at the wrong time.
And the same goes for Stanley too. One day, while he is on his way home back from school, suddenly a pair of sneakers fall directly at him. He thinks it was luck and wants to carry them to his father, who tries to find a way to recycle old sneakers. But the sneakers belong to Clyde Livingston, a famous baseball player. Stabley gets arrested and is sent to Camp Green Lake, a camp where the boys, who come there have to dig holes to improve their caracters.
Stanley gets used to the conditions by the time he is there and gets to know the other boys. One boy, Zero, is very quiet at the beginning, but later Stanley and Zero become best friends. They make a deal: Stanley teaches Zero writing and Zero digs Stanley´s holes one hour a day, in return. When the Warden, one of the guards, finds out about their deal, the situation escaletes and Zero runs away from the camp- without any water. Within the next days, Zero does not return and Stanley worries about him a lot. He decides to search Zero and leaves the camp too - without any water. After a long time he finds the boy and they decide to go towards a mountain range. They get there and find water and onions.
One day they decide to go back to the camp and dig a hole at a place, where Stanley thinks a treasure might be burried. They find the treasure and get back home, where both boys become very rich.

2. Characters
Stanley: Stanley Yelnats is not the thinnest boy. The other students and even some of the teachers bully him at school. Stanley´s family is not the richest, but they seem not to be unhappy. I think that Stanley is a strong character, who tries to see things positively all the time.
Hector Zeroni: Hector Zeroni also called Zero is a homeless boy whose mother left him when he was young. He can´t write or read, but he seems to be very smart. At the beginning of the book Zero appeared very shy and not self-confident, but the friendship with Stanley strengthened his character a lot, I think.
The Warden: The Warden is a heartless woman full of brutality. She wants to find the treasure which Stanley and Zero find in the end. She owns rattlesnake venom with whom she hurts everybody who annoys her.

3. Style
The book is written in a pretty easy style. There aren´t any complicated sentences and in most cases the words that are used are simple as well. The writing-style is some sort of “funny”, I think. There aren´t any metaphors or symbols used.

4. Themes
The book mainly treats about the topic of friendship. Especially the ending shows that friendship is very important. If Stanley had left Zero in the Camp, he probably would have died. But there are lots of sub-topics, too, for example how cruel a human can be. I think the author wants to show, how important friendship is to every person´s life.

5. Structure
The plot of the story is divided into 3 chapters. The first one treats of Stanley´s entering in the Camp and ends with Zero learning to read. Part two describes Zero and Stanley leaving from Green Camp, their return and them leaving for ever. Part 3 is pretty much the ending of the story. It tells the reader about what happens to Green Lake, Stanley´s family and Zero.
But that´s just the main plot of the story. There is a sub-plot too in which the reader is told about Green Lake, Sam, the onion seller, Stanley´s no-good-dirty-rotten-pig-stealing-great-great-grandfather, Kissin´Kate Barlow and many others.
The story is told by an omniscient third person narrator.

6. Settings
The book takes place somewhere in the USA, but some parts of the sub plot happen on another continent. Camp Green Lake is situated somewhere in the dessert of Texas.
It is not really mentioned when the story takes place, but I imagine it to be some time in the 20th century.