Hardcover, 240 pages
English language
Published Oct. 20, 2000 by Bloomsbury Pub Ltd.
Stanley Yelnats is under a curse. A curse that began with his no-good-dirty-rotten-pig-stealing great-great-grandfather and has since followed generations of Yelnatses. Now Stanley has been unjustly sent to a boys' detention center, Camp Green Lake, where the boys build character by spending all day, every day, digging holes exactly five feet wide and five feet deep. There is no lake at Camp Green Lake. But there are an awful lot of holes. It doesn't take long for Stanley to realize that Camp Green Lake isn't what it seems. Are the boys digging holes because the warden is looking for something? But what could be buried under a dried-up lake? It's up to Stanley to dig up the truth.
I read this to my kids and they thoroughly enjoyed it. Me too and that's always a blessing as the chief story reader. Just enough cliffhanger chapter ends that they're looking forward to tomorrow.
I did have to stop to explain quite a few of the words to the younger of the 2 at the time but she still thoroughly enjoyed it.
