summary of holes by Lewis satcher at Camp Green Lake there is neither an actual Lake nor a camp it used to be the biggest lake in Texas but it hasn't had any water for the last 110 years it is now a camp for Bad Boys where every day the boys dig holes the only person on the bus to Camp Green Lake is Stanley yelmatz he tries to act like he's going to a real summer camp so he can meet new people since he gets picked on at home for being overweight Stanley didn't do anything wrong but he was found guilty because his no-good dirty rotten Pig stealing great-great-grandfather stole a pig and cursed all of his offspring because of it no one in Stanley's family really thinks this even though a lot of bad things do happen when Stanley gets off the bus he is taken care of by a guy named Mr Sir Stanley puts on an orange jumpsuit as Mr Sir tells him he has to dig a five foot deep five foot wide hole every day and should tell a psychologist about anything interesting he finds tent D is where Stanley meets his guide Mr pandansky and the other guests Mr pandansky calls them by their real names when he introduces them but the boys call themselves x-ray squid magnet armpit zigzag and xero when they talk about themselves Stanley takes his four-minute cold shower and eats dinner the other boys don't believe that Stanley is at camp for taking famous baseball player Clyde Livingston's shoes as Stanley walked home from school a pair of smelly shoes fell from the sky and landed on him Stanley thought that the shoes were the key to his father's latest invention so he ran to show them to his father his folks didn't have enough money to pay for a lawyer to protect him as Stanley starts to dig his first hole the Storyteller tells Stanley about his great-great-grandfather Ilya yelmatz at age 15 Ilya fell in love with Myra Menke in Latvia Myra's father on the other hand wanted her to marry 57-year-old pig farmer Igor barkov Ilya asked for help from his friend madame zarone she said Myra was stupid and selfish but she still agreed to help Ilya she gave Ilya a small sickly Piglet and told him to take it every day to a nearby Mountain where it could drink from a stream while Elia sang it a special song Ilia was supposed to take Madame zarone up the hill after Myra's birthday if he didn't do what she said she'd curse his heirs for all time Elia did what he was told and both he and the pig got big and strong on the last day Elia didn't take his Pig up the hill though instead he took a bath Myra's father let her choose Igor or the pig because they both weighed the same Myra wouldn't choose so Ilya got on a ship headed for America he didn't know until later that he'd broken his word to Madame Zeroni after Ilya got married and had the first Stanley the curse started to seem real in America Stanley plays his first hole in the present he spends a few minutes in the recreation room which is called the rec room and then realizes that his tentmates have called him the caveman he then lies to Stanley's mother in a letter he sends to Stanley's mother about how much fun he is having at camp over his shoulder he sees zero reading Stanley finds a fish fossil on the second day even though Mr pandanski says the warden isn't interested in fossils the group's boss x-ray tells Stanley that he needs to give him anything else he finds Stanley has been at camp for a year and hasn't found anything later that afternoon Stanley joins Mr pandansky in a group he is leading even though no one takes it seriously the boys talk about what they want to do when they get out Mr pandanski talks about taking care of yourself and calls zero dumb one day Stanley finds a metal tube in the dirt on one end KB is written in a heart he gives it to X-ray and tells him to find it the next day Stanley tries to talk to x-ray about the tube over breakfast the next morning but x-ray won't talk about it the next morning x-ray finds the tube and the warden comes out to watch the digging the boys dig in the same spot for a week and Stanley figures out that the warden is looking for something zero tells Stanley one afternoon that he doesn't know how to read and he asks Stanley to teach him Stanley says that he can't teach because he doesn't know how and doesn't have the energy the next morning while Mr Sir is filling canteens magnet steals his sunflower seeds the boys take turns passing them around but Stanley drops one in his hole just as Mr sir comes back to look for them Stanley takes the credit and Mr Sir takes Stanley to talk to the warden at the warden's house the warden uses rattlesnake venom to make red nail polish that she puts on her nails when Mr Sir bothers her she hits him hard when Stanley goes back to his hole he finds that zero has been digging for him in the afternoon of that day Stanley thinks about the first Stanley who kiss and Kate Barlow robbed and left in this desert he must have found safety on God's thumb but when he was saved he had no idea what that meant Stanley later offers to help zero learn to read in return for lessons zero agrees to help Stanley dig some of his holes the Storyteller goes back to the 1880s when Green Lake was a town right on the lake everyone liked miss Catherine Barlow but Charles trout Walker was especially fond of her trout Walker on the other hand was Dumb and proud of it he was also rich and spoiled when miss Catherine turned him down he was very angry not long after that Sam The Man Who Sold onions offered to fix up Miss Catherine's broken down schoolhouse Sam made the classroom look great over the course of a few months one night when it was raining they finally kissed someone saw them and the next day a group of angry people burned down the school because Sam was black instead of helping Catherine the sheriff asked her for a kiss Catherine and Sam tried to get across the lake but trout Walker shot Sam and rescued Catherine three days later Catherine shocked the sheriff kissed him and became a feared Outlaw for the next 20 years she went back to Green Lake when it was a dead town trout Walker and Linda his wife found her there tried to get her to tell them where her wealth was but a yellow spotted snake bit her and she died laughing and telling them to dig in the present Mr sir's face grows as big as a watermelon he doesn't give Stanley any water when he brings water Stanley keeps teaching zero to read and zero picks it up quickly even though the other boys make fun of Stanley and call him a slave master when zero digs Stanley finds out that Zero's real name is Hector zarone one morning Stanley looks out into the distance and sees a rock creation that looks like a thumbs up sign he wonders if this is God's thumb the next day Mr pandanski brings lunch zigzag starts to push Stanley and Mr pandansky tries to start a fight as Mr pandanski shoots his gun to call the warden zero saves Stanley from zigzag zigzag tells the warden what Stanley and zero have agreed to do she says the lessons should stop and Mr pandanski says zero is too dumb to learn anything anyway zero hits Mr pandansky in the face with a shovel and then walks into the desert Stanley thinks about going after zero for the next few days Stanley asks the warden Mr Sir and Mr pandansky where zero is and they tell him that they are going to destroy Zero's records since he is a State Child nobody cares about him Stanley plans to steal the water truck and save zero on the day that group D gets a new boy twitch he drives the truck into a hole and then keeps going into the desert on foot he thinks the thumbs up sign is telling him to keep going in the afternoon he finds zero hiding under an old boat in a cave he's been eating something he calls splush which is some kind of fruit Jam he gives Stanley his last jar and then the two of them decide to go to God's thumb zero starts to get terrible stomach cramps but he is still able to walk all the way to the edge of the lake bed climb up the rocks on the other side and then start up the mountain zero throws up and then passes out at one point Stanley leaves their shovel and the jars they saved behind and starts to carry zero up the hill Stanley falls into a wet ditch near the top and finds water and an onion he gives some to zero and the two of them rest for the next two days zero tells Stanley that he took Clyde Livingston's shoes from the homeless shelter and Stanley sings him ilya's song zero tells Stanley about his mother as he gets better they used to live in a house but they had to steal everything they needed zero thought he was doing a better thing by taking old shoes from the homeless shelter instead of new ones when he stole them Stanley and zero decide to go back to Camp try to find Kate Barlow's wealth where Stanley found the tube and then run away zero talks more about his mom as he and Stanley walk they try not to drink water they find the hole that night and start digging Stanley is shocked to find a bag and is able to get it out of the way in the end as he gives it to zero the warden Mr Sir and Mr pandansky walk in the adults on the other hand run away in horror because the hull is a nest for yellow spotted lizards and both boys are covered in lizards after a few hours Stanley and xero are still living and the adults are talking about shooting them to get the wealth the warden tells their story as well Stanley was crazy fell into a hole and snakes ate him Mr Sir tells Stanley that he is innocent and that his lawyer came to get him yesterday but Stanley is too busy to listen at last they see an approaching car a young woman says that she is Stanley's lawyer Ms Marengo and then introduces the Texas Attorney General the warden tries to tell them that Stanley tried to steal her bag but her story doesn't make sense after a few minutes Stanley is able to crawl out of the hole and help Zero stand up when the warden tries to take Zero's bag zero points out that Stanley's name is written on it after finishing the papers Ms Moreno tries to get Stanley to leave but he won't go without zero Ms Marengo and the Attorney General find that Zero's papers are lost so Ms Marengo takes zero with her in the car she says that Stanley's dad made something to get rid of foot odor and she acts like she didn't hear zero say that he took Clyde Livingston's shoes at Green Lake it starts to rain the narrator says that Stanley's father had his breakthrough on the day that Ilya yell natz's great-great-great-grandson brought Madame zarone's great-great-great-grandson up the mountain this is true whether or not you believe in the curse Camp Green Lake is going to be a Girl Scout camp and Stanley and zero will each get about a million dollars from the money in the bag a year and a half later Stanley and Hector go to a party to watch Clyde Livingston's new ad for Stanley's father's idea Hector is sitting with his mother and his mother is singing a version of the song that Madame zarone taught Elia about the author Louis satcher was born in East Meadow New York and grew up there until he was nine years old then he and his family went to California even though he went to the University of California at Berkeley to study business he became interested in reading and writing when he was in high school satcher worked as a teacher's aide at a neighborhood grade school while he was still in school and he loved it this job and the kids he worked with gave him ideas for his first children's book sideways stories from Wayside School which was accepted by a publisher during his first week of Law School after he got his law degree satcher worked in the legal field part-time while he wrote in 1989 he quit the legal field to write full-time in 1985 he got married and in 1987 his daughter was born holes is one of satcher's most well-known books it won the prestigious Newberry medal in 1999 and in 2003 Disney made it into a movie satcher wrote the script for the movie he lives in Texas with his wife hope we summarized it fully and you 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