Stanley Yelnats's family has a history of bad luck, so when a miscarriage of justice sends him to Camp Green Lake Juvenile Detention Centre (which isn't green and doesn't have a lake), he is not surprised.

Every day he and the other inmates are told to dig a hole, five feet wide by five feet deep, reporting anything they find. The evil warden claims that it is character building, but this is a lie, and Stanley must dig up the truth.

Wonderfully inventive, compelling and hilarious, Louis Sachar has created a masterpiece.