Holes Book Review

Farukh Hussain
Schneider
3A

Holes begins with a boy named Stanley Yelnats walking home down a street in the city.
Then suddenly a pair of famous running shoes that belong to Clyde Livingston, a famous
baseball player, dropped on the head of Stanley and knocked him out. The police find Stanley
and the shoes and arrest him because those shoes were donated form Mr. Livingston himself to a
local charity to raise money for the under privileged. Stanley goes to the state court and in a plea
bargain is sent to Camp Green Lake, a correctional facility for boys so they can transform from a
bad kid to good and civilized citizen. This brings me to the theme of adolescence in the book. In
the beginning it shows how Stanley is acting like a true kid and is sort of ignorant in a way that
gets him into trouble. Then as you progress through the book Stanley and his best friend that he
makes, Zero, both become more and more mature. Basically, Stanley and Zero learn to grow up
and become men out in the wilderness when they escape from Camp Green Lake. They start to
show traits of leadership and take on a role of independency. Also, Zero toughens himself out
making it through every obstacle that is thrown at him whether its through peer pressure or out
in the wild. In the end adolescence plays a huge toll in panning out the future for Stanley and
Zero because both of the boys now know what it takes to be a man and by growing up and
maturing through the hardships they went through at Camp Green Lake make them sort of
invincible to the reality of the real world.


The characters/people at the camp consist of Stanley, Zero, Stanleys best friend, X-ray,
and Squid, who are all part of Stanleys digging group 7, plus a few other boys. X-ray and Squid
are two boys that have always been trouble makers and backbiters their whole lives, they have
been at Camp Green Lake for over 8 months when Stanley arrived. Their parents write letters to
them on a daily basis and they are trying to change their ways so they can go see their moms
again. The boys punishment when sent to Camp Green Lake is to dig holes every day for the
warden, who is the one in charge and running the facility, and this is supposedly going to teach
them a lesson. The Warden is the granddaughter of the man who owned Camp Green Lake and
has been looking for treasure that is hidden somewhere in the Lake. That treasure belongs to
Kissin Kate Barlow, a female outlaw that was the most feared all around the nation. The camp
counselors that watch and feed the boys are Mr. Pendanski, and Mr. Sir, they give off this mean
vibe and are very rude to most of the boys. This ties in with social deviance because the two men
are violating the norm of being role models to the boys and instead are harassing them. They
have no sense of morals within then at all. A main literary theme that I saw throughout the book
was Good vs. Evil. I always truly believed from the start of the book that Stanley and Zero were
the good guys, and the warden and the two camp counselors were the bad guys running the
show. These boys are tortured into digging holes because the warden was looking for something,
some treasure from her families past that was worth a lot of money. Stanley realizes this fairly
quickly so when Zero runs away from the camp, Stanley soon follows and they are on their own,
the good guys.
This is where I see the theme of socialization factor and comes into play. When Stanley
and Zero run away they become even closer as friends and they both learn how to feed off of
each other to survive in many different ways. That includes eating, walking, keeping each other


company, etc. The boys learn so many things while they escape that horrific camp, and thats
when they truly learn from their mistakes of even ending up at Camp Green Lake in the first
place. This is the time where Stanley and Zero learn to grow up and become men out in the
middle of nowhere, and soon they build up good characteristics and a good core set of values
about themselves. They become socialized and make an identity for themselves and this is when
they head back to Camp Green Lake. When Stanley and Zero make it back to camp they get into
a little tussle with the warden and her crew because Stanley finds a chest in one of the wholes
and it even has his initials on it, so it belongs to him. A little later Stanleys lawyer shows up and
has a warrant that says Stanley is innocent and is free to go with her and Zero has no records on
file so he can come to. Both of the boys get out of Camp Green Lake and receive millions of
dollars for the treasure that they found.
All in all, in the very end Stanley and Zero both become resocialized by making Zero
officially a part of the Yelnats family, and just being good guys in general. Clyde Livingston
hangs around with the boys now too. Stanley learns a lot from Camp green Lake and makes a
lifelong friend in Zero, and they both do everything together and now are just living their lives,
with a lot of moneyof course. I think that the themes of this book all intertwined to make a
great story that I really enjoyed reading. Stanley and Zero go from being some unknown kids
that are confused in their lives to close friends and have a bright future ahead of them filled with
core traits and values that are instilled with one another. And that will take them a long way in
life, because theres nothing better than simply being the good guy.