In Louis Sachar’s Holes, the protagonist’s first name is Stanley.
Stanley Yelnats is sent to Camp Green Lake, a juvenile detention facility in Texas, after being wrongly accused of stealing a famous athlete’s shoes. Although the camp claims that digging holes builds character, its warden is actually searching for a buried treasure connected to the area’s past.
Stanley’s surname is a palindrome: Yelnats reads the same backward and forward. The novel draws attention to this unusual family name and to the repeating patterns of bad luck and inherited stories that connect Stanley’s present with earlier generations.
Holes was published in 1998 and won the 1999 Newbery Medal. It combines realistic fiction, historical backstory, mystery, and dark humor. Readers sometimes confuse Stanley with Hector Zeroni, whose nickname is Zero and whose friendship with Stanley becomes central to the story.