Holes is a deceptively easy book. It rarely uses complex vocabulary and is written mainly in short, simple sentences grouped into easily digestible paragraphs and chapters that are frequently less than a page long. You’d be forgiven, when first beginning to read it, for assuming that there isn’t much to it. 

On closer inspection, however, it reveals itself to have a very carefully crafted and surprisingly rich narrative, with each word and even punctuation mark working very deliberately to shape your interpretation of its central characters and themes. 

Stanley is a chronically unlucky teen who is unwittingly accused of a crime he didn’t commit: “stealing” a pair of shoes that literally fell from the sky into his hands. In court, he is given the choice of going to jail or Camp Green Lake: “Stanley was from a poor family. He had never been to a camp before.” 

In just two short sentences, the author, Louis Sachar, skillfully introduces one of the novel’s core themes: the fact that justice systems rarely mete out genuine “justice,” especially when the people who pass through them lack the knowledge necessary to make informed decisions. 

Stanley, you see, doesn’t know that Camp Green Lake is a “camp for bad boys.” He doesn’t know that he will be forced to dig holes in a desert in the hot sun all day in the hopes “it will turn him into a good boy.” He assumes it’s a holiday camp and, never having had the money to afford to go to one, feels it’s a better option than jail. 

All of this happens just three pages into the novel. Sachar is a master of economy and wastes absolutely no time in marching the narrative forward, bringing both Stanley and the reader to Camp Green Lake, where the majority of the novel takes place. There, Stanley meets a ragtag group of other campmates and gradually unravels a morality tale that explores what it is to be a “good boy” or “bad boy,” and how the actions of our ancestors can have long-lasting effects on the present-day. 

What begins as a simple narrative quickly expands to span generations, taking us back to 19th century America and even to historical Latvia. Along the way, it touches on many of the themes that remain deeply relevant to modern America: the challenges facing immigrants traveling to the US, and the legacy of racially-motivated violence against Black Americans. 

Yet despite this complex and nuanced subject matter, the book never loses its uncanny simplicity. It feels, at times, almost like a fairy tale: much as how bread crumbs are pivotal to Hansel and Gretal, almost laughably simple items like onions and peaches take on unexpected thematic significance in Holes. 

It is, then, a curious book. It is incredibly accessible, even for less proficient readers, and is often included on middle school syllabuses, yet it is also thematically rich and unafraid to explore darker and more mature themes. Much like the holes it is named after, what seems trivial on the surface conceals unexpected depth.