60 Fun Facts About Holes

Who wrote the novel Holes?

He also wrote the Wayside School books, but Holes is the outlier in his catalogue for its tangled, multi-generational plot.

In which US state is Camp Green Lake located?

The camp's name is a joke: there is no lake, no shade and no green.

How big must each hole the boys dig every day be?

The boys measure with their shovels, which are conveniently five feet long.

What is special about the name Stanley Yelnats?

Stanley is the fourth boy in his family to carry the name, which is why he keeps blaming his ancestors for his luck.

Who plays Stanley Yelnats in the 2003 film?

It was his first theatrical film; he was still taping Even Stevens at the same time.

Who plays the Warden in the film?

The Warden gets a rare thing in a children's film: a villain role for an actress best known for fighting aliens.

Clyde 'Sweet Feet' Livingston, whose donated shoes land Stanley in trouble, is a star in which sport?

The shoes literally fall out of the sky onto Stanley as he walks under an overpass.

What nickname do the other campers give Stanley?

X-Ray hands out the name, and it comes with a promotion of one place in the water line.

What is Zero's real first name?

His surname is Zeroni, which is the key that unlocks the whole curse plot.

What does Stanley agree to teach Zero in exchange for help digging?

The deal is the start of the friendship that eventually saves both boys.

Mr. Sir is constantly eating what?

It is his substitute for smoking, and it makes him no less grumpy.

What happens at Camp Green Lake for the first time in 110 years as Stanley is driven away?

The drought began the day Sam was killed, so the ending closes that story too.

Who plays Mr. Sir in the film?

The young cast found him unnerving because he stayed in character between takes.

Why do the deadly lizards leave Stanley and Zero alone at the end?

Sam the farmer swore his crop was a cure for everything, and it turns out he was right.

What did Katherine Barlow, the schoolteacher, become famous for making?

She traded jars of them for produce, which is how her romance with Sam began.

Which camper got his nickname after being stung by a scorpion?

He is the only D-Tent boy to get his own book, the 2006 spin-off Small Steps.

X-Ray's nickname comes from what?

He can barely see without his glasses, which makes the name a joke on several levels.

Why is Charles Walker nicknamed 'Trout'?

Clyde Livingston has the very same foot fungus, which is why Stanley's father's invention finds a famous customer.

The Warden wears nail polish laced with what?

She scratches Mr. Sir with it, and his face swells for the rest of the book.

What is the Warden's catchphrase?

Mr. Sir owns the Girl Scouts line; the Warden's two quiet words are far scarier.

How is the Warden related to Charles 'Trout' Walker?

Her family have been digging for Kate Barlow's loot since before she was born.

How did Kissin' Kate Barlow earn her nickname?

In the book she only kisses the men she kills; those she merely robs are left to the desert.

What does Stanley find in his hole with the initials 'KB' on it?

He hands it to X-Ray, who 'finds' it the next morning to earn the whole group a search zone.

In which country does Stanley's great-great-grandfather Elya Yelnats grow up?

The book gives no exact date but places Elya's story around the middle of the 19th century.

Who is the girl Elya Yelnats hopes to marry?

Madame Zeroni warns him her head is as empty as a flowerpot, and she turns out to be right.

What promise to Madame Zeroni does Elya fail to keep?

Generations later Stanley carries her descendant up a mountain, which is what finally lifts the curse.

How does the Yelnats family insult go: Stanley's 'no-good-dirty-rotten-...-great-great-grandfather'?

The joke is that Elya never actually stole a pig; the family just needs someone to blame.

Stanley Yelnats I survived a desert robbery by climbing a mountain the family calls what?

It turns out to be the site of Sam's old field, still growing wild crops a century later.

The suitcase Stanley and Zero dig up contains financial instruments worth roughly how much?

Zero uses his share to hire private investigators to track down his mother.

Who directed the 2003 film Holes?

He was best known for action thrillers such as The Fugitive and wanted to prove he could do something else.

Which prize did Holes win in 1999?

It had already collected the National Book Award for Young People's Literature the year before.

What is Mr. Sir's real name, revealed in the film?

The novel never gives his backstory; the film makes him a parolee who is arrested at the end.

What do the boys call Mr. Pendanski?

The name stands in for the absent parents at camp, even though he treats Zero worst of all.

When both suitors' pigs weigh exactly the same, how does the girl Elya loves decide whom to marry?

That is the moment Elya realises Madame Zeroni was right and lets Igor have her.

Which camper left before Stanley arrived after deliberately getting a snake to bite him?

Stanley inherits his cot in D-Tent.

What is Sam's beloved donkey called?

Sam rows across the lake and swears by his crops as a cure for everything, but the donkey is his real companion.

What are the only plants mentioned at Camp Green Lake?

The book puts it bluntly: the Warden owns the shade.

What animals played the yellow-spotted lizards in the film?

Fourteen were used, four in featured parts and the rest as 'background atmosphere lizards'.

What kind of actor did the director say he wanted for Stanley?

The book's Stanley is overweight and slims down; the film dropped that arc as impractical to shoot.

Which actor was originally cast as Stanley but dropped out to make Agent Cody Banks?

Malcolm in the Middle's star chose the spy comedy instead.

Which singer and actress plays Madame Zeroni in the film?

The role of the one-footed fortune teller was one of the last film parts for the original Catwoman.

Which producers were behind 'Dig It', the song performed by the D-Tent Boys in the film?

The 'D-Tent Boys' were simply the young actors who played the D-Tent inmates.

Which real-life NBA player appears in the film as Clyde 'Sweet Feet' Livingston?

The Lakers forward endorses Sploosh in the final scene, just as in the book.

The film Holes is dedicated to which cast member, who died before its release?

He played Trout Walker and died about six months before the film opened.

Under what character name does the author make his cameo in the film?

The cameo comes in one of the flashback scenes set in old Green Lake.

Before the author was hired, which screenwriter drafted a darker, sci-fi take on Holes that was rejected?

The Donnie Darko writer later admitted he was naive and was told his post-apocalyptic draft was 'insane'.

Who composed the score for the film?

The soundtrack also featured Moby, the Eels, Shaggy and a new recording of Keb' Mo's 'Just Like You'.

Which film kept Holes out of the top spot in its opening weekend?

Roger Ebert wrote that Holes was 'much more grown up and sophisticated' than the Adam Sandler comedy that beat it.

The author's wife Carla, an elementary school counselor, was the inspiration for which Holes character?

She had earlier inspired the counselor in There's a Boy in the Girls' Bathroom.

How many days was Stanley Yelnats I stranded in the desert after Kate Barlow robbed him?

Hunters found him delirious, with only a garbled story about where he had sheltered.

Which imprint first published Stanley Yelnats' Survival Guide to Camp Green Lake in 2003?

The tongue-in-cheek handbook came out a month before the film and hit number eight on The New York Times children's paperback list.

Which actor plays Zero in the film?

He had never opened the book before he was cast, and trained by climbing rope and digging holes to cope with the desert.

Which D-Tent boy is the tallest, with frizzy hair that makes him look electrocuted?

Stanley thinks he is the strangest camper, and he is the one who hits Stanley with a shovel during a fight.

Why is José nicknamed Magnet?

He calls his fingers 'little magnets', and it is his theft that gets Stanley dragged to the Warden's cabin in the film.

In Small Steps, X-Ray drags his old campmate into a scheme involving what?

The pop star at the centre of it, Kaira DeLeon, ends up befriending him.

What did the author say inspired him to write Holes?

He has said he never intended to write a grim story and wanted it to be fun and adventurous.

Which publisher first released Holes in 1998?

The novel won that year's US National Book Award for Young People's Literature.

Besides the Newbery Medal, which major US prize did Holes win in 1998?

It also took the 1999 Boston Globe-Horn Book Award for Fiction.

How long did filming of Holes take, and on what budget?

Shooting took place in California, including Ridgecrest, in the summer of 2002.

Roughly how much did the film Holes gross worldwide?

It opened at number two behind Anger Management with $16.3 million.