Which Newbery Medal-winning book features a boy named Stanley Yelnats? The answer is Holes, Louis Sachar’s 1998 novel.
Stanley Yelnats IV is sent to Camp Green Lake, a harsh juvenile detention camp in a Texas desert, after being wrongly convicted of stealing a famous athlete’s shoes. The boys are ordered to dig one large hole every day, supposedly to build character—but the Warden is really searching for something buried beneath the dried-up lake.
The novel’s mystery connects Stanley’s present to several generations of family history, including a supposed curse, the outlaw Kate Barlow, and the friendship between Stanley and another camper, Hector “Zero” Zeroni. Their stories eventually converge in the book’s climactic discovery.
Holes won the 1999 Newbery Medal, which recognized the most distinguished contribution to American literature for children published in the preceding year. It also won the 1998 National Book Award for Young People’s Literature and was adapted into a 2003 film. A common mix-up is confusing the novel with Small Steps, Sachar’s 2006 spin-off about Armpit, a minor character from Camp Green Lake.