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.