Holes: Similarities and Differences in Book and Movie

Holes, written by Louis Sachar, was awarded the Newbery Medal in 1999. The main character, Stanley Yelnats, had a difficult time with life in general. Stanley was overweight, which contributed to many altercations with the school bully Derrick Dunne. Stanley's parents were poor because his dad was an unlucky inventor and his family blamed their years of misfortune on a curse caused by Stanley's great-great grandfather's broken promise to a gypsy. To make matters worse, one afternoon after school Stanley got arrested by the police when they assumed he stole a pair of shoes from a homeless shelter. Stanely was simply in the wrong place at the wrong time, which, of course, he blamed on his ancestor. In court, Stanley was given a harsh choice. He could either go to jail or attend Camp Green Lake, a juvenile correctional facility. Stanley chose Camp Green Lake, which actually proved to be no lake at all- just endless miles of desert with minimal plant life and wildlife except for a few oak trees, rattlesnakes, scorpions, and yellow-spotted lizards. Camp Green Lake's main purpose was to have the boys dig a hole each day that were five feet deep and five feet across as punishment, the warden claimed, to build stronger character.
A hundred years earlier, however, Green Lake was actually a lake surrounded by a nice town. However, one day Sam, a popular African American onion man, kissed Miss Katherine Barlow, a white school teacher. The people in the town burned the school. Katherine Barlow ran to report to the sheriff what was happening , but instead discovered he wanted a kiss from her and threatened to hang Sam. Katherine then slapped the sheriff and ran to tell Sam what was going to happen to him. After they made it halfway across the lake in his boat, Sam was shot. It didn't rain again after that evening. Three days later, Katherine Barlow, grief-stricken, shot the sheriff, kissed him with her bright red lipstick, and for the next several years was known as the bandit "Kissin Kate Barlow." Stanley's family also told him a story about his great grandfather, also named Stanley Yelnats, who lost his entire fortune when he was robbed by the well-known outlaw.
For weeks upon weeks, Stanley dug his holes in the hot, blazing sun along with Group D's obnoxious members, Squid, Armpit, Magnet, Zigzag, and X-Ray. Zero was a member of Group D also, but he was different. Through the experience, Zero and Stanley, became quite good friends, who stuck up for one another throughout the story. One day Stanley came across a lipstick tube with the initials KB, which was when he finally started putting the pieces of the puzzle together. The warden made the boys dig the holes because she and her cronies, Mr. Sir and Mr. Pendanski, among others were hunting for the treasure. After Stanley and his friend, Zero, escaped from "camp" for a few days, they went back to dig one last hole to finally locate the buried treasure that belonged to Stanley's great grandfather many years before.
Towards the end of the book, after two girls testify to the fact that Stanley was still at school trying to retrieve a notebook that was thrown in the toilet by Derrick when the shoes were stolen, Stanley's attorney came for Stanley. Zero also accompanied Stanley and the attorney because the facilitators at the camp destroyed Zero's records. Therefore, they didn't have any evidence to keep him. The Attorney General shut down Camp Green Lake to transform it into a Girl Scout Camp, Stanley's father finally formulated a new product to alleviate the problem of foot odor, and it finally rained again at Green Lake. Stanley used the money to buy a new house for his parents and Zero successfully used his part to hire private detectives to locate his long, lost mother.
After reading and watching Holes, I found the popular book to be very similar to the Disney movie, which was released in 2003. The majority of the characters in the movie were identical to the characters in the book. The director of the movie did a fantastic job of making the majority of the characters resemble the characters' descriptions in the book. For example, in the book, Stanley described the warden as tall and red-headed with many freckles. The warden, played by Sigourney Weaver, met this description. Zigzag was another character Stanley distinctively described as having wild and frizzy blonde hair. In the movie, Zigzag's character had wild hair.
I also found the movie utilized the description of Camp Green Lake to make it resemble the descriptions found in the book. The endless miles of desert, the mountains in the distance, and the countless holes helped me develop a better picture of what the camp actually looked like. In addition, much of the dialogue and the events in the movie was in order of how it appeared in the book: the bus ride to the camp, the flashbacks, Stanley taking the blame for the stolen sunflower seeds, and Mr. Sir getting scratched by the warden with her rattlesnake venom were just a few of the events that were almost identical to those found in the book.
On the other hand, I detected some differences in the book and the movie. The biggest difference I observed was in the physical characteristics of Stanley. In the book, Stanley was overweight and was bullied at school by Derrick Dunne. In fact, Stanley got released from camp because of the fact two girls saw him coming out of the boy's bathroom to retrieve a notebook from the toilet that was put there by the bully, Derrick. The character that played Stanley in the movie, however, was slim and nothing was ever mentioned about him being bullied at school. In my opinion, this was a critical difference because Stanley's awkward appearance and low self-esteem played a big part throughout the book.
Another difference I noted between the book and the movie was when Miss Katherine Barlow left the sheriff to go and find Sam. In the book, Katherine finds Sam, tells him what is going to happen to him, and they make it halfway across the lake before he gets shot. In the movie, however, Katherine doesn't get a chance to tell Sam what will happen to him because Sam is already out on the lake.
Furthermore, there is a slight difference in the event where Stanley decides to take Mr. Sir's truck to look for Zero. In the book, Mr. Sir only runs alongside the truck before Stanley drives the truck into a hole. However, in the movie, Mr. Sir runs alongside the truck and falls in a hole himself before Stanley drives in the hole. I also observed the differences in the warden's vehicle. In the book, the warden drove a truck, but in the movie, she drove a classic white car. Finally, in the book, Kissin Kate Barlow died when a yellow-spotted lizard jumped on her ankle and bit her. In the movie, however, Kate Barlow actually put the lizard on her arm for the lizard to bite.
I thoroughly enjoyed reading and then watching Holes. I found that the movie stayed very close to the book, with only a few differences.