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Hi everyone, this is Jessica. Well, it's great to see you today. I miss you all very much.

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I think about you guys all the time, so I hope you are doing well. I hope you are safe and healthy,

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and I hope you are studying still, and I hope that you are enjoying quarantine as much as you can

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right now. Just to give you a fast update about me, I am still in Madrid. A lot of my friends

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have returned to the United States or the United Kingdom, but I have chosen to stay in Madrid for

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quarantine. So even though I live in the neighborhood of La Latina, which is very close

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to where a lot of you also live, it doesn't feel very close right now. It feels very far away

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because of quarantine. But no matter, because I feel healthy and I feel very lucky to have a place

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to be. And anyway, I hope that it is the same for all of you. I really miss you guys very much,

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truly. Okay, well, in honor of the International Book Day, we are going to read the first three

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chapters of a book that is actually a book that I very much love myself. The book is called

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Holes. And maybe some of you have heard of it or have already read it even. It's quite a famous

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book in the United States. I read it when I was about your age, actually. And I've also seen the

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film many times. There is a film and it's a book. So it's a very good story about a boy.

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um today we're going to read the first three chapters together and it should take us about

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15 minutes or so all together um and of course if you like the story and you want to continue reading

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I recommend that very much I will make sure to send a pdf link to the story so you can read it

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with the PDF if you like. Of course, if you prefer to have a real book, then you can purchase the

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book. You can buy it on Amazon in English, of course, or at a bookstore if any are open right

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now. I have the story on my tablet. I don't know if you can see it, but anyway, so you can use your

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tablet or your laptop or your computer with the PDF that I can send, okay? So we will go ahead

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and get started for the first three chapters of Holes. Holes by Louis Satchar. Part one,

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you are entering Camp Green Lake. Chapter one, there is no lake at Camp Green Lake.

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There once was a very large lake here, the largest lake in Texas.

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That was over 100 years ago.

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Now, it's just a dry, flat wasteland.

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There used to be a town of Green Lake as well.

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The town shriveled and dried up, along with the lake and the people who lived there.

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During the summer, the daytime temperature hovers around 95 degrees, about 40 degrees Celsius.

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In the shade, if you can find any shade, there's not much shade in a big, dry lake.

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The only trees are two old oaks on the eastern edge of the lake.

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A hammock is stretched between the two trees, and a log cabin stands behind that.

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The campers are forbidden to lie in the hammock.

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It belongs to the warden.

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The warden owns the shade.

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Out on the lake, rattlesnakes and scorpions find shade under rocks and in the holes dug by the campers.

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Here's a good rule to remember about rattlesnakes and scorpions.

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If you don't bother them, they won't bother you.

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Usually.

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Being bitten by a scorpion or even a rattlesnake is not the worst thing that can happen to you.

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You won't die.

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Usually.

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Sometimes a camper will try to be bitten by a scorpion or even a small rattlesnake.

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Then he will get to spend a day or two recovering in his tent

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Instead of having to dig a hole out on the lake

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But you don't want to be bitten by a yellow spotted lizard

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That's the worst thing that can happen to you

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You will die a slow and painful death, always

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If you get bitten by a yellow-spotted lizard, you might as well go into the shade of the oak trees and lie in the hammock.

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There is nothing anyone can do for you anymore.

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Chapter 2

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The reader is probably asking, why would anyone go to Camp Greenlake?

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Most campers weren't given a choice.

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Camp Greenlake is a camp for bad boys.

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If you take a bad boy and make him dig a hole every day in the hot sun, it will turn him into a good boy.

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That was what some people thought.

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Stanley Yelness was given a choice.

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The judge said, you may go to jail or you may go to Camp Greenlake.

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Stanley was from a poor family. He had never been to camp before. Chapter 3.

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Stanley Yelnats was the only passenger on the bus, not counting the driver or the guard.

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The guard sat next to the driver with his seat turned around facing Stanley. A rifle lay across

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his lap. Stanley was sitting about 10 rows back, handcuffed to his armrest. His backpack lay on

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the seat next to him. It contained his toothbrush, toothpaste, and a box of stationery his mother

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had given him. He promised to write her at least once a week. He looked out the window, although

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though there wasn't much to see, mostly fields of hay and cotton. He was on a long bus ride

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to nowhere. The bus wasn't air-conditioned, and the hot, heavy air was almost as stifling

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as the handcuffs. Stanley and his parents had tried to pretend that he was just going away

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to camp for a while, just like the rich kids do. When Stanley was younger, he used to play with

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stuffed animals and pretend the animals were at camp. Camp fun and games, he called it.

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Sometimes he'd have them play soccer with a marble. Other times they'd run an obstacle course

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or go bungee jumping off a table tied to broken rubber bands.

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Now, Stanley tried to pretend he was going to camp fun and games.

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Maybe he'd make some friends, he thought.

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At least he'd get to swim in the lake.

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He didn't have any friends at home.

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He was overweight, and the kids at his middle school often teased him about his size.

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Even his teachers sometimes made cruel comments without realizing it.

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On his last day of school, his math teacher, Mrs. Bell, taught ratios.

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As an example, she chose the heaviest kid in the class and the lightest kid in the class and had them weigh themselves.

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Stanley weighed three times as much as the other boy.

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Mrs. Bell wrote the ratio on the board, three to one, unaware of how much embarrassment she had caused both of them.

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Stanley was arrested later that day.

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He looked at the guard who sat slumped in his seat and wondered if he had fallen asleep.

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The guard was wearing sunglasses, so Stanley couldn't see his eyes.

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Stanley was not a bad kid.

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He was innocent of the crime for which he was convicted.

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He'd just been in the wrong place at the wrong time.

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It was all because of his no-good, dirty, rotten, pig-stealing great-great-grandfather.

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He smiled.

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That was a family joke.

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whenever anything went wrong they always blamed stanley's no good dirty rotten pig stealing great

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great grandfather supposedly he had a great great grandfather who had stolen a pig

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from a one-legged gypsy, and she had put a curse on him and all his descendants.

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Stanley and his parents didn't believe in curses, of course, but whenever anything went wrong,

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it felt good to be able to blame someone. Things went wrong a lot.

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They always seem to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.

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He looked out the window at the vast emptiness. He watched the rise and fall of a telephone wire.

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In his mind, he could hear his father's gruff voice softly singing to him,

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If only, if only, the woodpecker sighs.

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The bark on the tree was just a little bit softer.

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While the wolf waits below, hungry and lonely, he cries to the moo-oo-oo-oo.

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If only, if only.

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It was a song his father used to sing to him.

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The melody was sweet and sad, but Stanley's favorite part was when his father would howl the word moo.

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The bus hit a small bump and the guards sat up, instantly alert.

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Stanley's father was an inventor.

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To be a successful inventor, you need three things.

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intelligence, perseverance, and just a little bit of luck. Stanley's father was smart and had a lot

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of perseverance. Once he started a project, he would work on it for years, often going days

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without sleep. He just never had any luck. Every time an experiment failed, Stanley could hear his

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father, cursing his dirty, rotten, pig-stealing great-great-grandfather. Stanley's father was

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also named Stanley Yelnats. Stanley's father's full name was Stanley Yelnats III. Our Stanley

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is Stanley Yelnats IV. Everyone in his family had always liked the fact that Stanley Yelnats

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was spelled the same frontward and backward. So, they kept naming their sons Stanley.

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Stanley was an only child, which was every Stanley Yelnats before him.

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All of them had something else in common. Despite their awful luck, they always remained hopeful.

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As Stanley's father liked to say, I learn from failure.

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But perhaps that was part of the curse as well.

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If Stanley and his father weren't always hopeful, then it wouldn't hurt so much every time their hopes were crushed.

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Not every Stanley Yelnats has been a failure.

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Stanley's mother often pointed out, whenever Stanley or his father became so discouraged

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that they actually started to believe in the curse. The first Stanley Yelnats,

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Stanley's great-grandfather, had made a fortune in the stock market.

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He couldn't have been too unlucky. At such times, she neglected to mention the very bad luck that

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befell the first Stanley Yelnats. He lost his entire fortune when he was moving from New York

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to California. His stagecoach was robbed by the outlaw, Kissin' Kate Barlow. If it weren't for

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that, Stanley's family would now be living in a mansion on a beach in California. Instead,

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they were crammed in a tiny apartment that smelled of burning rubber and foot odor.

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If only, if only. The apartment smelled that way because Stanley's father was trying to invent

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a way to recycle old sneakers. The first person who finds a use for old sneakers, he said,

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will be a very rich man. It was that latest project that led to Stanley's arrest.

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The bus ride became increasingly bumpy because the road was no longer paved.

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Actually, Stanley had been impressed when he first found out that his great-grandfather

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was robbed by kissing Kate Barlow. True, he would have preferred living on the beach in California,

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but it was still kind of cool to have someone in your family robbed by a famous outlaw.

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Kate Barlow didn't actually kiss Stanley's great-grandfather. That would have been really

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cool, but she only kissed the men she killed. Instead, she robbed him and left him stranded

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in the middle of the desert. He was lucky to have survived, Stanley's mother was quick to point out.

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the bus was slowing down the guard grunted as he stretched his arms

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welcome to camp green lake said the driver stanley looked out the dirty window he couldn't

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see a lake and hardly anything was green okay guys that uh those are the first three chapters

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of the book holes. I hope you have enjoyed it. If you have any questions about specific words,

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then be sure to look at the PDF that I provide and have a look at your English dictionaries to

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see if you can find what the words mean or synonyms for the words to help you learn what

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they mean. Uh, as well, um, again, if you, if you want to continue reading the book, I highly

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recommend it. Or if you want to watch the film first to see if you like the story and then decide

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if you want to read the book, that's also a very good idea as well. All right, guys, it's been a

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pleasure seeing you today. It's been a pleasure to spend some time with you. Um, I really miss

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you guys very much. I miss going to school with you every day and seeing you, but I hope that

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we are all healthy and safe being at home during quarantine. If you guys have any questions or if

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you want to talk to me at all, I have made a specific email address just for my students.

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So I will send that email address to the English coordinator, as well as the teachers who I work with at the school, and they can give you that email address if you have questions about homework, or the book holes, or if you have stories that you are writing,

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or if you want to ask for recommendations of TV shows in English or films or books,

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please feel free to email me at the email address that I will give them.

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It is specifically for my students, so it's a way for you to contact me

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if you want to tell me how you are doing or what you are writing or reading right now.

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But anyway, today is a very special day. It's International Book Day, so please celebrate as you want. Read a book in English, in Spanish, in Arabic, whatever you like. Just make sure that you are reading a book today because so many people don't have that ability, that luck.

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so we want to make sure to celebrate a fantastic holiday like international book day by reading

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reading reading reading reading all right guys thank you again very much

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i look forward to talking with you soon bye