In Holes by Louis Sachar, each of the boys at Camp Green Lake is required to dig a hole as deep and as wide as his shovel every day. When Stanley finds out Zero cannot read, Zero wants Stanley to teach him, but Stanley claims he will be too tired each day from digging his hole to help. Zero claims he likes to dig holes, so he offers to dig half of Stanley's hole every day in exchange for reading and writing lessons.

The other boys in Tent D are not happy with this development, and it builds up resentment between the characters. They see this as Stanley stopping his digging before he is supposed to and therefore not doing his fair share of work. X-Ray in particular begins to taunt Stanley and Zero about this, and when the other Tent D boys get an opportunity to tell adults what has been going on, Stanley and Zero are reprimanded and told they need to dig their own holes. When Zero escapes, the Warden insists she still wants to see the same amount of holes, forcing Stanley to dig two holes until he runs off to find Zero. Because Stanley does not finish digging his holes as required, he is eventually forced to do more work.