Holes (novel)
Holes (1998) is a Newbery Medal-winning novel by Louis Sachar. It was adapted into a screenplay for the 2003 film by Walt Disney Pictures which was a critical and commercial success, and starred Shia LeBeouf, Sigourney Weaver, Jon Voight, Patricia Arquette, and Tim Blake Nelson. In 2006, Sachar published Small Steps, a companion novel which is about one of the characters from Holes, Armpit.
Plot
The story of Stanley Yelnats and Camp Green Lake started about one hundred years ago. Back in Latvia, Elya Yelnats, the great-great-grandfather of Stanley, fell in love with an empty headed girl. Her father announced that on this girl's birthday, whoever shows up with the largest pig will have his daughter. Elya did not own any pigs; discouraged, he went to Madame Zeroni, an old woman with many words of advice. She gave Elya a piglet, and told him that every day, he was to take the piglet up the mountain on the edge of town, and let it have a drink of water from the stream on it, while singing it a special melody that she taught him. The pig will grow every day, and Elya would grow stronger every day, allowing him to carry a full-grown pig up the mountain. On the day the pigs were to be judged, he was to carry the pig up the mountain one last time; his pig would be the biggest one that would be at the girl’s house....
