Holes

Stanley Yelnats IV has terrible luck. Blamed for a crime he didn't commit, he is sent to Camp Green Lake, a juvenile detention center in the Texas desert where there is no lake and no water. The boys must dig one five-foot-deep, five-foot-wide hole every day, supposedly to build character. But as Stanley digs, he uncovers the truth: the warden is using the boys to search for a buried treasure hidden by the outlaw Kissin' Kate Barlow over a century ago.

The novel weaves three interconnected stories: Stanley's present-day ordeal, the tale of his great-great-grandfather Elya Yelnats who broke a promise and brought a curse upon the family, and the tragic history of Kissin' Kate Barlow. As these narratives converge, Stanley discovers how the past has shaped his present and that the family curse might finally be broken.

Louis Sachar spent a year and a half writing Holes, rewriting it five times. Published in 1998, it became a New York Times bestseller and won the 1998 National Book Award for Young People's Literature and the 1999 Newbery Medal. In 2012, School Library Journal ranked it number six among all-time children's novels. The book was adapted into a 2003 Disney film starring Shia LaBeouf and Sigourney Weaver. [edit]