Holes · Garden Heights Academy

Part 1

for Holes · Part 1 · Chapters 1–7 · Book Part One: “You Are Entering Camp Green Lake”

a novel by Louis Sachar

35 min5 Parts

This workbook is built on a solid pedagogical foundation, effectively integrating content and language learning based on the CLIL framework (Content and Language Integrated Learning), elevated by our unique 5th C — Connection — and an integrated Standardized Test section that weaves every SAT & TOEFL question type right into the novel, so learners build real test skills easily, naturally, and with fun.

💭 Before You Read · Just for Fun

No right or wrong answers — just think or chat about it: Have you ever been blamed or punished for something you did not do? How did it feel — and what did you wish the people in charge understood? Do you think bad luck can really follow a family, or do people make their own luck?

What Happens in Part 1

Stanley Yelnats is sent to dig holes in a waterless desert camp for a theft he did not commit.

A dry lakebedCamp Green Lake is a brutal detention camp on a dried, sun-baked lakebed in the Texas desert. There is no lake at all.

One hole a dayEvery boy digs one hole a day, five feet (1.5 m) deep and just as wide, supposedly to build character.

Why Stanley is hereStanley Yelnats was convicted of stealing a famous athlete’s sneakers, a crime he did not commit.

The family curseHis family blames their bad luck on a curse begun when his great-great-grandfather, Elya Yelnats, broke a promise to Madame Zeroni.

What We Will Learn

Literary Element	What It Means
Setting	The time and place where a story happens — here, the harsh, dried-up Camp Green Lake
Foreshadowing	Clues a writer drops that hint at what will happen later
Flashback	A scene that jumps back to an earlier time, before the main story

Chapter Summary

Chapter	Key Events
Ch.1	Camp Green Lake — the camp is a hot, dry, dried-up lakebed in Texas; the only danger is the deadly yellow-spotted lizard
Ch.2	Digging Holes — every boy must dig one hole a day, five feet deep and five feet (1.5 m) across; they are told it ‘builds character’
Ch.3	Stanley’s Bad Luck — Stanley is wrongly convicted of stealing a star athlete’s sneakers; his family blames an old curse
Ch.4	Arrival — Stanley meets Mr. Sir and is warned that the yellow-spotted lizards are the real thing to fear
Ch.5	D-Tent — Stanley meets Mr. Pendanski and the boys: X-Ray, Armpit, Squid, Zigzag, Magnet, and Zero
Ch.6	The First Hole — Stanley digs his exhausting first hole and finishes last, his hands raw with blisters
Ch.7	The Curse — a flashback tells how Elya Yelnats broke his promise to Madame Zeroni, starting the family curse; Stanley digs up a fossil

Copyright Notice

Independent study guide by Garden Heights Academy. Not affiliated with or endorsed by Louis Sachar or the publisher. No text from the novel is reproduced. Students should read the original book.

Part 1

Vocabulary

Study 10 key words from Chapters 1–7, then answer each question.

🧠Knowledge Bank · How a Lake Becomes a Playa

Earth Science · Dry LakebedsGreen Lake was once the largest lake in Texas, and the novel’s desert is built on real geology. A lake survives only while rain and rivers deliver at least as much water as the sun takes back. When evaporation wins that contest year after year, the shoreline retreats, the shallows turn to mud, and the mud finally bakes into a flat, salty crust that scientists call a playa. Salt is left behind because water leaves as vapor and minerals cannot follow it, so the ground whitens for miles. A playa is hard enough to drive on and almost impossible to dig without tools, which is exactly the surface the boys are handed a shovel and told to attack. Understanding this one process explains the camp’s cruelty in physical terms: the Warden has not chosen difficult ground by accident. She has chosen the hardest ground in the state, so that every hole costs a full day of a boy’s labor.

A flat, pale desert floor stretching to the horizon, its dried mud split into a close mosaic of hard plates with edges curling upward, a dead twig lying across it — Photograph of a dried lakebed of the kind the *Knowledge Bank* describes. The mud has shrunk and split into hard plates whose edges curl upward — the surface left when evaporation beats every source of water, year after year. This is Racetrack Playa in Death Valley, not Green Lake, and no camp or dig site appears here. Notice how flat and how hard the ground reads. That is the surface a boy is handed a shovel and told to open, five feet (1.5 m) down.
Dried playa surface, Death Valley, USA. Source: Wikimedia Commons, file "The parched earth at the Racetrack Playa" (245e93a8), public domain.

ⓘ Vocabulary words are selected to help you understand and complete this workbook. Some may not appear verbatim in the novel.

desolateadj.Ch.1

Empty, bare, and lonely

“The desolate lakebed stretched empty for miles.”

barrenadj.Ch.1

So dry that nothing can grow

“Nothing grew on the barren ground but a few dry weeds.”

parchedadj.Ch.1

Extremely dry from heat and lack of water

“The parched earth had cracked in the blazing sun.”

swelteringadj.Ch.1

Uncomfortably and exhaustingly hot

“The boys dug all day in the sweltering heat.”

perilousadj.Ch.4

Full of danger

“A bite from a yellow-spotted lizard is perilous.”

juvenileadj.Ch.2

To do with young people; for young offenders

“Camp Green Lake is a juvenile detention camp.”

delinquentn.Ch.2

A young person who breaks the law

“The camp is meant to reform young delinquents.”

cursen.Ch.3

Words or a spell meant to bring bad luck

“Stanley’s family blamed their troubles on an old curse.”

innocentadj.Ch.3

Not guilty of a crime

“Stanley was innocent, but he was sent away anyway.”

fossiln.Ch.7

The preserved imprint or remains of an ancient living thing

“Stanley dug up a fossil of a small fish.”

🧠Knowledge Bank question

1According to the Knowledge Bank, why does the Warden choose such barren, sun-baked ground?Ch.1

2If land is “barren,” many plants and flowers grow there.Ch.1

3The ground at Camp Green Lake is so dry it has cracked in the heat. It is —Ch.1

4Fill in each blank with the correct word.Ch.1

Word choices:swelteringparchedfossilcurse- some words will not be used

The boys dig all day in the heat.

By noon the ground is and hard.

5Something “perilous” is safe and harmless.Ch.4

6Camp Green Lake is a place for young people who have broken the law. Such a young person is called a —Ch.2

7Stanley did not commit the crime he was punished for. He is —Ch.3

8A “curse” is words or a spell meant to bring bad luck.Ch.3

9Fill in each blank with the correct word.Ch.2–3

Word choices:juveniledelinquentinnocentcurse- some words will not be used

Camp Green Lake is a detention camp.

Stanley’s family blames their troubles on an old .

10Stanley digs up the preserved imprint of an ancient fish. This is a —Ch.7

Part 2

Comprehension

How well do you understand Chapters 1–7?

🧠Knowledge Bank · A Name That Reads Backward

Language · PalindromesStanley Yelnats is not an ordinary name. Spell the surname in reverse and the first name comes back, letter for letter, which makes the whole name a palindrome. English is full of small ones — level, racecar, noon — but a palindrome long enough to hold two names is rare enough that a writer only builds one on purpose. Sachar built it for a reason readers do not see until the end. A palindrome runs forward and backward to the same place, and the novel does the same thing: it opens in the present, travels more than a century into the past, and returns to answer the question it began with. The name is also inherited, passed from father to son through four generations, so the loop belongs to the family as well as to the spelling. Before a single hole is dug, the shape of the whole book is already hiding inside its hero’s name.

Visual AidOne name, read both ways

Diagram for the Knowledge Bank on palindromes. It sets the two names out as letter tiles so the mirroring can be seen at once, and leaves out everything else about the character. It does not claim that every palindrome carries a hidden meaning, only that this one was built on purpose. Notice that the reversal is exact, letter for letter, across seven letters — long enough that no writer arrives at it by accident.

Geometry from the spelling of the two names as printed in the novel. Drawn for Garden Heights Academy.

🧠Knowledge Bank question

1According to the Knowledge Bank, what does the palindrome in Stanley's name mirror?Ch.1

2The most dangerous creatures at Camp Green Lake are the yellow-spotted lizards.Ch.1–4

3What must each boy at the camp do every single day?Ch.2

4What are the boys told that digging holes will do for them?Ch.2

5Put these events from Part 1 in the correct order. Write 1–4 (1 = first).Ch.3–6

Stanley chooses Camp Green Lake instead of jail.
Stanley digs his very first hole in the dried-up lake.
Stanley is wrongly convicted of stealing a star athlete’s sneakers.
Stanley arrives and is warned about the yellow-spotted lizards.

6Stanley was caught actually stealing the sneakers from a store.Ch.3

7What had Stanley supposedly stolen?Ch.3

8Who does Stanley’s family blame for their bad luck?Ch.3

9Stanley finishes digging his first hole quickly and easily.Ch.6

10In the flashback, what did Elya Yelnats forget to do for Madame Zeroni?Ch.7

Part 3

Literary Elements

Understanding HOW and WHY Sachar writes Chapters 1–7 the way he does.

🧠Knowledge Bank · Planting Clues Early

Literary Craft · Foreshadowing and MotifPart 1 hands the reader more than it explains, and the gap is deliberate. Foreshadowing is a hint dropped early whose meaning arrives late: the yellow-spotted lizards described in a tone of warning, the standing order to report anything interesting to the Warden, the promise Elya Yelnats failed to keep on a mountainside. None of those matter yet. All of them will. Sachar also opens a flashback, cutting from a Texas detention camp to an immigrant’s story generations earlier, and he trusts a young reader to hold two times at once. Watch for details that return with a difference, because a repeated image is a motif, and motifs are how this novel will braid its separate centuries into one plot. A first part that feels slightly overloaded is usually a first part doing setup, and here almost nothing on the page is decoration.

📚 Literary Devices in This Part · definitions & examples

Setting is the time and place where a story happens. The hot, dry, dangerous Camp Green Lake is a setting that shapes everything the characters do.

Foreshadowing is when a writer drops clues that hint at what will happen later. Sachar fills Part 1 with such clues.

Flashback is a scene that jumps back to an earlier time, before the main story. Sachar uses one to tell the family’s past.

The questions below are mixed — not grouped by device. Decide which device each one is about.

🧠Knowledge Bank question

1According to the Knowledge Bank, why does Part 1 feel slightly overloaded with detail?Ch.1

2Being told to report anything ‘interesting’ to the Warden is a clue that the digging has a hidden purpose.Ch.2

3Fill in the blanks with the correct words.Ch.7

Word choices:flashbackpastrhymecurse- some words will not be used

A scene that jumps back in time is called a . It shows events from the .

4Early warnings about the yellow-spotted lizards hint that they will matter later. A clue about what is coming is called —Ch.4

5A flashback tells about events that happened before the main story.Ch.7

6Fill in the blanks with the correct words.Ch.1

Word choices:settingplacerhymelizard- some words will not be used

The time and place where a story happens is its . Camp Green Lake is the main of the story.

7The story of Elya Yelnats and Madame Zeroni jumps back more than 100 years. A scene set in the past like this is called a —Ch.7

8Setting is the time and place where a story happens.Ch.1

9Fill in the blanks with the correct words.Ch.2–4

Word choices:foreshadowingcluerhymehole- some words will not be used

A hint about what will happen later is called . The lizards are an early that danger is coming.

10Telling Stanley’s present-day story and the Elya Yelnats flashback side by side creates a —Ch.7

Part 4

Think Deeper

Four deeper challenges — no single-word recall. Read, weigh the evidence, and reason it through.

🧠Knowledge Bank · Punishment Called Character

US History · Juvenile Work CampsCamp Green Lake is invented; the theory behind it is not. For more than a century American states ran reform schools, prison farms, and desert boot camps on one shared belief — that exhausting physical work would rebuild a young offender’s character. Investigations through the 1990s found that the opposite often happened. Such camps were cheap to run, lightly inspected, and measured by obedience rather than by what became of the children afterward, and several closed after deaths from heat and untreated illness. Sachar wrote directly into that argument. He gives his camp a wholesome slogan and then shows an operation with no teachers, no schooling, and no plan for anyone’s future — only digging. The ethical question the novel raises is not whether children should face consequences. It is whether a punishment that nobody ever evaluates can honestly be called correction.

1Claim: “Stanley is sent to Camp Green Lake for a crime he did not commit.” — choose the two details that best prove it.Claim & Evidence

2Shows the injustice of Stanley’s situation, or just a fact about the camp? Tap each item to sort it — tap again to switch sides. You can keep tapping to change your answer.Sort into two

◄ The injusticeJust a fact ►

3Match each cause to its result. For each cause, pick its result.Cause & Effect

Stolen sneakers fall onto Stanley→

Stanley is wrongly convicted→

At the camp every boy digs→

The family blames an old curse→

🧠Knowledge Bank question

4Fill both blanks to complete the reasoning.Build the Argument

The Knowledge Bank argues that Camp Green Lake's slogan cannot be trusted because , which shows that .

Part 5

Standardized Test · Vocabulary in Context & Main Idea

Part 1 builds four exam reading skills — Vocabulary in Context, Main Idea, Inference, and Author’s Purpose — in the styles the SAT and TOEFL use. Read the passage (the highlighted words are tested below), then choose the answer best supported by the text.

When a Lake Disappears

A lake can vanish. When more water evaporates under a hot sun than rain and rivers can replace, a lake slowly shrinks until only a dry, cracked lakebed remains. As the last mud dries, it shrinks and splits into a mosaic of hard, curling plates, each edge peeling upward in the heat. A pale crust of salt and other minerals is often left behind, whitening the ground for a great distance where the water once stood. Such a barren flat can stretch for miles, parched and remote from any town, almost empty of life.

Yet the desert that follows is not truly dead. Plants and animals that endure these harsh places have learned to adapt. Some lizards stay still through the sweltering heat of the day and hunt at night, when the air is cooler. Water is so scarce that every drop matters, and for people a dried lakebed can be dangerous. The ground bakes into a hard crust, shade is rare, and the shift from cool night to blazing noon is abrupt. Anyone crossing such a vast, sun-struck flat must carry water and respect the land, because the desert punishes every careless mistake.

Original passage written for Garden Heights — not a quotation from the novel.

1As used in the passage, the word “barren” most nearly means —SAT · Words in Context

2According to the passage, why do desert animals rest by day and hunt at night?TOEFL · Factual Information

3According to the passage, a lake disappears when —TOEFL · Factual Information

4In the passage, “parched” most nearly means ___.SAT · Words in Context

5According to the passage, how do some desert lizards handle the daytime heat?TOEFL · Factual Information

6In the passage, “sweltering” most nearly means ___.SAT · Words in Context

7Which statement best expresses the central idea of the passage?SAT · Central Ideas

8The passage calls the shift from cool night to blazing noon “abrupt”; travelers must therefore —SAT · Inference

9The passage most strongly suggests that crossing a dried lakebed without water would be —TOEFL · Inference

10Why does the author mention lizards that hunt at night?SAT · Text Structure & Purpose

Part 6 · Optional

Creative Writing

A bonus challenge to practice your English.

About This Section

This writing task is optional and not part of your auto-graded score. Feedback checks length, spelling, and grammar only.

Writing Task — Part 1 “Welcome to Camp Green Lake”

Use setting and imagery to describe Camp Green Lake on Stanley’s first day. What does he see, feel, and fear in the heat? Write at least 40 words.

You can start with: “As the bus doors hissed open, a wall of dry heat hit Stanley, and the first thing he saw was…”

0 / 40 words minimum

🗣 Teach It · Just for Fun (optional)

No right or wrong — close the screen and tell someone nearby what happened in this part. Can’t find anyone? Tell yourself out loud. The moment you teach it, you truly understand it.

Part 1 Complete!

You finished Chapters 1–7 of Holes.

Here are your auto-graded results:

-

points out of 100

Teach it to someone

The best last step is to teach it. In your own words, explain what happened — retell a favorite scene, teach a character’s big choice, or sum up the main idea for a parent, friend, or classmate. When you can teach it clearly, you truly own it.

Move on to Part 2 →⌂ Back to Holes Home 🏠 Library