Holes (novel)
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| Author | Louis Sachar |
|---|---|
| Language | English |
| Genre | Adventure, Satire |
| Publisher |
Farrar, Straus and Giroux (US) Bloomsbury (UK) Ediciones SM (Spain) |
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Publication date
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August 20, 1998 |
| ISBN | |
| OCLC | 3800257333232 |
| [Fic] 21 | |
| LC Class | PZ7.S1185 Ho 1998 |
Holes is a 1998 young adult mystery comedy novel written by Louis Sachar and first published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux. It won the 1998 U.S. National Book Award for Young People's Literature and the 1999 Newbery Medal for the year's "most distinguished contribution to American literature for children". In 2012 it was ranked number 6 among all-time children's novels in a survey published by School Library Journal.
Holes was adapted as a feature film of the same name by Walt Disney Pictures, and was released in 2003.
Stanley Yelnats IV is a 14-year-old boy from a hard-working but poor family that is allegedly affected by a curse of bad luck, which they blame on Stanley's "no-good-dirty-rotten pig-stealing-great-great-grandfather". Stanley's latest adversity is to be wrongly accused of stealing a pair of shoes contributed to a homeless shelter by the baseball player Clyde "Sweet Feet" Livingston.
As retribution, Stanley is sent to Camp Green Lake, a juvenile imprisonment and disciplinary facility which is ironically in the middle of a sterile desert. As a punishment, the inmates of the camp have to dig 1 hole a day 5 feet wide and 5 feet deep to 'build character'. Stanley soon begins to suspect that they are not digging to build character, but rather to find something hidden beneath the dry, rocky ground.
Stanley's "no-good-dirty-rotten-pig-stealing-great-great-grandfather", Elya Yelnats, is in love with a girl named Myra Menke, but a much older pig farmer named Igor Barkov also wants to marry her, offering Myra's father his heaviest pig in exchange for Myra's hand in marriage.
Desperate to impress Myra and her father, Elya goes to his friend Madame Zeroni for help. She warns him that Myra is not intelligent and will not be a good wife, and advises him to move to America, as her son has. She gives him a tiny piglet, telling him to carry the piglet up a mountain every day, and let it drink from a stream while singing to it. Each day the water will make it grow bigger, and Elya will grow stronger. On the last day, after he carries the pig one last time, he must carry Madame Zeroni herself up the mountain to do the same, as he will then be strong enough to carry her. However, Zeroni warns him that if Elya does not carry her up the mountain, his family will be cursed.
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