# Holes

**Author:** Louis Sachar
**Lexile:** 660L
**Grade range:** Grades 4–7
**Age range:** 9–12
**First published:** 1998
**Page count:** 233
**Genre:** Middle Grade Fiction
**ISBN-13:** `9780440414803`
**ISBN-10:** `0440414806`
**Canonical URL:** https://readinglist.school/book/holes
**License:** [CC BY 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) — please credit ReadingList.school when citing.

## About this book

Stanley Yelnats is wrongly sent to a juvenile detention camp in the Texas desert where boys are made to dig one hole a day. Sachar's Newbery Medal novel weaves a family curse, a 19th-century outlaw, and a present-day mystery and is a fixture of 4th-7th grade ELA curricula.

## Themes

- fate vs choice
- friendship
- justice
- family legacy
- racial history

## Content notes

- mild violence
- peril

Common Sense Media age recommendation: 10+

## Where this book is assigned

### Common Core State Standards (ELA)

- **recommended** · 5th grade — [source: CCSS ELA Appendix B, grades 4-5 exemplar](https://achievethecore.org/page/2699)
- **recommended** · 5th grade · Texas — [source: Houston ISD Summer Reading — grade 5](https://www.houstonisd.org/summerreading)

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