Holes characters

Also known as Caveman

Appears from the start

An overweight, unlucky boy who is wrongly convicted of stealing a pair of donated sneakers and sent to Camp Green Lake, a harsh juvenile detention camp in a dried-up Texas lake bed. He comes from a family that believes it is cursed because of a promise a distant ancestor failed to keep, and misfortune seems to follow them all. Gentle and slow to make enemies, Stanley is given the nickname Caveman by the other boys and is made, like all of them, to dig a large hole in the hard ground every single day.

First appears in chapter 7

The smallest and quietest boy at the camp, who almost never speaks and is widely assumed to be unintelligent. The counselors dismiss him, yet he digs faster than anyone. He watches Stanley closely, and an unlikely friendship begins to form between them, built around a simple exchange of help.

First appears in chapter 12

The woman in charge of Camp Green Lake, feared even by the adult counselors. Cool and controlling, she takes an unusual interest in anything the boys dig up, hinting that the daily digging is not really about building character at all. She is not a person to cross, and she has her own reasons for wanting the ground turned over.

First appears in chapter 2

One of the counselors at Camp Green Lake, a gruff, intimidating man who oversees the boys' digging and controls their water. He is short-tempered and constantly eating sunflower seeds while trying to give up smoking, which does nothing to improve his mood.

First appears in chapter 3

Another camp counselor, who presents himself as friendlier and more understanding than Mr. Sir. Despite his encouraging manner toward some of the boys, he is openly contemptuous of Zero, whom he treats as hopeless and worthless.

First appears in chapter 6

The unofficial leader of the boys in Stanley's tent, who wears glasses and holds a certain authority among them. He sets the group's pecking order and expects newcomers like Stanley to know their place, including an arrangement about anything valuable that turns up in the dirt.

Also known as Kissin' Kate Barlow

First appears in chapter 26

A figure from the history of Green Lake, back when it was a real lake and a thriving town. Once a beloved local schoolteacher, she fell in love with a man the townspeople would not accept, and after a terrible injustice she was transformed into a notorious outlaw who robbed and roamed the region for twenty years, including a robbery of one of Stanley's ancestors, before burying her stolen fortune somewhere in the area.

First appears in chapter 24

An onion farmer in the old town of Green Lake, known for his healing remedies and his boat. A kind and capable man, he grows close to the schoolteacher Katherine Barlow, but their bond is met with violent prejudice by the town, with tragic consequences that reshape the whole valley.

First appears in chapter 7

A figure from the tale of the family curse, an old woman in the old country who once helped Stanley's homesick great-great-grandfather in exchange for a promise. When that promise was broken, she was said to have laid a curse on him and all his descendants, which the Yelnats family blames for its long run of bad luck.