Why do you think books lead character, Stanley Yelnats, connects with so many children?
Stanley isn’t a hero-type. He’s a kind of pathetic kid who feels like he has no friends, feels like his life is cursed. And I think everyone can identify with that in one way or another. And then there’s the fact that here he is, a kid who isn’t a hero, but he lifts himself up and becomes one. I think readers can imagine themselves rising with Stanley. What was the hardest part of writing Holes? People often ask me how I managed to tie everything together at the end, but that wasn’t the hard part. I knew how everything was going to fit together. The hard part was laying out the strands throughout the story, telling the story of Kate Barlow and of Elya Yelnats and Elya’s son, without it getting in the way of Stanley’s story. The other problem I had occurred when Stanley was digging his hole for the first time. I wanted the reader to feel what a long, miserable experience this is, digging those 5′ by 5′ holes. But how many times can you say, “He dug his shovel back into the dirt and lift
