Holes — Chapter 43

About This Passage

This is the passage in which Zero tells Stanley how his mother left him and did not come back. He had waited at Laney Park for more than a month, sleeping inside a playscape tunnel. Copying this passage asks a student to sit with the fact that a child once waited for a parent who never returned, and to notice how Sachar lets Zero tell the story in his own plain, unbroken voice rather than dressing it up.

Narration Prompt

In three or four sentences, retell the events of Chapter 43, from Zero's memory of a yellow room, to the boys' walk back across the lake bed, to the moment they hide in holes near Camp Green Lake waiting for everyone to fall asleep.

Discussion Questions

1. Zero's voice is described as 'suddenly hollow' when he says his mother never came back. The text suggests Sachar chooses this word very carefully. What makes the word 'hollow' the right word, and what does it reveal about Zero's feelings even now?
2. Stanley and Zero play a silent game of each pretending not to be thirsty so the other will drink first. The author reveals a kind of friendship without any big speeches. What in the chapter shows you this kind of friendship, and why do you think Sachar stages it so quietly?

+ 3 more questions in the complete study guide