Holes — Chapter 47

About This Passage

This passage was chosen because it is the physical crossing out of the lizard nest — the moment the boys’ ordeal ends and their bodies finally begin to move again. The prose mirrors their unsteady return: dizziness, steadying, slow help, staggered departure. It is a model of how Sachar paces the aftermath of terror at the sentence level.

Narration Prompt

In five or six sentences, retell Chapter 47 in order. Begin with Stanley counting eight lizards and eleven yellow spots, then cover Zero’s name puzzle (‘Sa-tan lee’), the lizard that leapt off to eat the tarantula, the arrival of Stanley’s lawyer in pajama pants with the tall Attorney General’s man, and end with the Warden’s broken attempt to say ‘impossible.’

Discussion Questions

1. Sachar opens Chapter 47 with Stanley counting ‘exactly eleven yellow spots’ on each of the eight lizards. How can you tell, from the carefulness of that counting, something real about Stanley’s mental state after a full night of terror? What does the precise number reveal that a vague one would not?
2. Zero has spent the entire night working out that ‘Stanley’ and ‘Yelnats’ are nearly reversals of one another, and he delivers the discovery one word at a time (‘Satan,’ then ‘Sa-tan lee,’ then the full question). What does this process of discovery reveal about Zero’s mind and about the kind of gift he has chosen to give Stanley in a moment of shared danger?

+ 3 more questions in the complete study guide