The Warden´s childhood

When Stanley and Zero are surrounded by the lizards, the Warden tells Mr. Sir about her childhood. She say that she was the one to dig holes when she was a child, even on Christmas. That might explain why she can be so hard to the boys and even the guards. There probably never was love and happiness in her childhood. And it can´t have been a happy childhood since there´s nothing around Camp Green Lake. She was in a prison without having commited any crimes at all. Her family obviously couldn´t think of anything besides the treasure any more. I wonder if she ever had friends. I don´t think so.
I chose this picture since this is how I imagine the warden as a girl. Always alone, nobody to play with and most likely, not even hope for a better life. In contrast to her Stanley and Hector never lost their hope, even when they were in the desert without any food or water.

Filling the holes

Stanley and Zero stay on the mountain for a few more days. They sleep and eat onions and Zero slowly gets better. As they cannot live on the mountain forever, they decide to go back to the camp one last time to search for the treasure the Warden is after. Therefore, they collect some onions and fill water in the jars Zero found and start their long way back to the camp. They eventually arrive there in the afternoon and hide in holes till it is dark. Stanley still remembers the whole where he found the tube with the initials K. B. and they begin to dig. At about 3 o´clock in the morning they find a suitcase. Just as Stanley hands the suitcase to Zero the Warden arrives. She obviously saw them digging. She wants Zero to give her the suitcase since that´s what she has been looking for all her life. But Zero refuses and suddenly there are poisonous lizards on both Stanley and Zero. Since they usually kill their victims immediately the Warden and the other gurads decide to wait. Yet, nothing happens (lizards do not like the smell of onions) and in the morning a car with two people comes. It is Stanley´s attorney and he is told that he can go home since he was found unguilty a few days ago. After a while Stanley is able to set himself free of the lizards and is ready to go. Yet, he refuses to leave Zero behind. Zero managed to keep the suitcase since he was able to read that the name written on the suitcase was Stanely´s. As the Warden is unable to prove that Zero has to be in the camp (his files were deleted after he ran into the desert) Stanley´s attorney takes both the boys home. That´s as well the point where Zero is calles by his original name Hector again.
This shows again that the characters are only losers inside the camp. Of course, both Hector and Stanley are still underachievers who are not accepted by the society. However, the camp made their situation even worse.
Inside the suitcase, which once belonged to Stanley´s great- grandfather, are stock certificates and therefore both Hector and Stanley receive a little under one million each. Stanley uses the money to buy a bigger house for his family and Hector pays an investigator to search for his mother since he diappeared when he was about 5 years old and was already living on the streets. Stanley´s dad invents something that eliminates bad foot odour with peach smell the day after Stanley carried Hector up the mountain. Hector is the great- grandson of the fortune teller that cursed Stanley´s great- granddad. Now the curse is broken.
The camp is closed.

The big Thump

Stanley keeps thinking about Zero. Therefore, he tries to steal the water truck in order to rescue Zero. Yet, Stanley overlooks a hole, drives in it and has to continueon his feet. He continues to walk for hours and eventually finds an upside down boat with someting orange sticking out. It is Zero who has been living on rotten peaches which let him become sick. Stanley´s grandfather managed to survive after being robbed years ago because he found something he calles "Good´s thump". Both Stanley and Zero see something on the top of a distant mountain that looks like a thump and therefore, decide to try to reach this as Zero refuses to go back to the camp. It is a very hard walk in the sun and it is even harder for Zero who is sick because of the peaches. Evenetually, they reach the mountain and begin to climp it. Most of it they manage to climp since they work as a team, yet near to the "thump" Zero faints and Stanley carries him. On the top there is mud and Stanley starts to dig in it as where there is mud there is water. He drips some of the water in Zero´s mouth and even finds an onion. (It has to be one of the onions Sam sold 110 years ago when there was still the lake.) I especially like this part of the book since it shows what two boys who never reached something in their lives actually can do. Many people would give up and go back to the camp where they had to dig hole, but Zero and Stanley are determined to lead their own lives from now on since they know what the true goals of the Warden are. It also shows in a way that in a live or death situation simply abilities are worth more than complex things. In such situations, the homeless (like Zero) and the rich are all the same.

Sunflower seeds

Somehow, I just asked myself why Mr. Sir eats sunflower seeds.
I believe that it represents the attidude of the guards of "Camp Green Lake" towards the boys. The boys are not really bad and do not have a bad character. For example, Zero who is said to be completely stupid. Yet, he is actually good in math. The boys talents could be seen as small hopes which still have to grow, just like the seeds Mr. Sir eats. Therefore, you could say that by letting the boys dig every day instead of teaching them stuff the could use in the real world, the guards destroy the small seeds of hope and opportunity the boys have.

Zero´s escape

46 days after Stanley arrives at the camp, it is Zigzag´s birthday and again the boys are digging their holes again. The rest of the group is upset since Zero digs a part of Stanley´s hole and they tell the warden. She asks Zero why he does it and Zero tells her about the lessons Stanley gives him. Stanley states that learning to write is as important as digging holes for Zero´s character. However, the Warden disagrees by saying that digging holes was Zero´s character. And Mr. Pendanski even say:"He´s so stupid, he doesn´t even know he is stupid. " This lets Zero freak out and he hits Mr. Pendanski with his shovel. Mr. Pendanski is unconcious before he even hits the ground. After this Zero runs away and since there is nowhere to go, the guards do not worry and do not chase after him. After two days the Warden and Mr. Pendanski erase all files that proved Zero´s existence in the camp and in the outside world. This is easy since he´s got no family and even lived on the street before he came to "Camp Green Lake".

Kate Barlow

Stanley starts to teach Zero writing and finds out that Zero is quite a quick learner. As a reward Zero digs Stanley ´s hole for an hour per day. Mr Sir´s face is swollen now and as a revenge he pours Stanley water in the dirt instead of pouring it in Stanley´s canteen. The main part of the last chapters of part 1 is about Kate Barlow. She was the one who robbed Stanley´s grandfather. She used to live in Camp Green Lake about 110 years ago and was a school teacher in the town when there was still a lake. A black man called Sam comes to the town every week by boat and sells onions. One day Kate complains about the roof of the school building and Sam offers to fix it. Somehow Kate likes Sam and asks him to fix more things in the school. One day she even kisses Sam which was not tolerated at that time. Hence, Sam is supposed to be hanged. Yet, Kate and Sam try to escape with Sam´s rowing boat, still they don´t have a chance since Charles Walker has a motor boat and is much faster. A few days later she shoots and kisses the sherrif who asked to kiss him as well after kissing Sam. That´s why she is henceforth called Kissin´Kate Barlow and it never rains again and the lake dries out. For years Kissin´Kate robs and kills a lot of people, still one day Charles Walker murders her. On the tube Stanley found were her initials. But he saw them before. On his mother´s and the Warden´s lipstick....

I like this part of the book since it somehow shows how smart Stanley and some of the other boys are. On the other hand it tells the story of a woman, namely Kate Barlow, who tried to make a differnce 110 ten years ago. On top of that you find out the reason why the boys really have to dig. They do not dig to build character, but to search the treasure Kate Barlow hid in the area of Green Lake. And now Stanley knows......

Chapters 11-20

Whenever the truck comes to give the boys water, they line up. X-Ray is the first, then Armpit, Squid, Zigzag, Magnet and Zero. Stanley (or Caveman) starts at the end behind Zero, but slowly moves up the line. One day Stanley finds out that Zero is illiterate. When the boys find something in their holes the Warden likes, they are able to get a day off. However, when Stanley finds a tube, he gives it to X-Ray since he´s the leader and so X- Ray gets a day off instead of Stanley. The funny thing about the warden is, that she´s a woman. After the tube is found the boys have to expand X-Ray´s hole since the Warden believes that this is the place where the tube is found. Of course they don´t find anything. The next day X-Ray steals the bag of sunflower seeds Mr. Sir likes to eat since he quit smoking. X-Ray shares them, yet Stanley doesn´t catch the bag and the contents spill into Stanley´s hole. Although he tries to hide the bag, Mr. Sir finds out and takes Stanley to the Warden. Against the expectations of Stanley and Mr. Sir, the Warden is not interested in what happens to Mr. Sir´s sunflower seeds and does clearly express this. Moreover, she even harms Mr. Sir with her nail polish which contains snake poison.

The first pages

Today I started to read the book “Holes“ by Louis Sachar. I chose this book since I already read it when I was about 13, but I forgot most of the story. The only thing I remember is that I liked it and therefore, I decided to read it again.

In the first ten chapters you get to know Stanley Yelnats. Every male member of his family was called Stanley. Stanley comes from a poor family and is overweight. A lot of things seem to go wrong since his great-grandfather was cursed a long time ago. Stanley´s dad is an inventor. His last project was trying to recycle sneakers. So, when Stanley finds a pair of old sneakers, he takes them home for his dad. Unfortunately, they belonged to a baseball star and Stanley is sent to “Camp Green Lake”, a Juvenile Correction Camp. The Camp is somewhere in Texas and therefore it is very hot. Nevertheless, the boys living there have to dig holes every single day, including Saturday and Sunday. Although, the camp is called “Camp Green Lake” nothing is green there and of course there is no lake. The boys are always thirsty since they have to work very hard and they live in tents where it is never cold. The boys don´t call each other by their real names, they have nicknames for each other, even for their counselor, Mr. Pendanski, who is called “Mom”. The weakest and smallest boy, for example, is called Zero and X-Ray, who is called like this because he has some problems with his eyes, is the leader of the group. Stanley is named “Caveman”.

The first pages made me feel sorry for Stanley as he seems to be a nice boy who only wanted to help his dad. Another aspect that makes me feel sad is the fact, that he always wanted to go to a camp when he was a child, but was never able to since his family is poor. So now that he´s in Camp Green Lake , he tries to pretend he is just in a summer camp like normal kids.