Holes by Louis Sachar

Genre: Fiction/Novel
Age Range: 12 and up
Summary: Stanley Yelnats’ family is cursed. Everything bad that happens in his life is blamed on the curse over his family that began with his no-good-dirty-rotten-pig-stealing-great-great-grandfather. His great great grandfather made a deal with a woman that if she helped him acquire a wife than he would carry her up the mountain to drink water. Stanley is walking home one day when he is hit in the head by a pair of shoes. He is walking with them when a police man sees him and arrests him. It turns out that she shoes were stolen and Stanley is accused of doing it. He is then sent to a detention center in the desert. There he is expected to dig a hole everyday that is the width and depth of the size of his shovel. While digging his hole he finds a lipstick case that turns out to be Kissing Kate Barlow. An outlaw from a long time ago. The detention center owner has the boys throughout the camp dig to continue looking for more. Stanley and his friend Zero escape, where Stanley has to carry Zero up a mountain so they can get food and water. They decide to go back to camp to look for the treasure of Kissing Kate Barlow, assuming that that is what the camp director had been hoping to find. They find the treasure and shortly after they discover that the camp director is a distant relative of Kissing Kate Barlow. Stanley then is sent home because he is proved innocent of the crime. He takes the treasure home and Zero comes with him. We find out that Zero is related to the woman from the beginning who Stanley’s great great grandfather was supposed to carry up the mountain. Thus, Stanley ending the curse after carrying him up the mountain.