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The Yelnats family is cursed. The curse began with Stanley Yelnats "no-good-dirty-rotten-pig-steeling-great-great-grandfather," Elya Yelnats, and has continued down through the generations to Stanley himself.
Elya Yelnats, poor, young and in love, has nothing to offer the family of his love. He makes a deal with an old fortune-teller, Mme Zeroni, but she warns him that if he breaks it she will put a curse on him and his family. Elya breaks his promise to Mme Zeroni, fleeing to America where generations of Yelnats will be forced to suffer for his failure.
Years later, Elya's descendant, is falsely accused of steeling a pair of sneakers from the famous baseball player Clyde Livingston. Stanley chooses to go to Camp Green Lake, a juvenile detention center for boys, rather than jail. Camp Green Lake is in the middle of a desert, and each boy there must dig a hole every day. Life is monotonous and grueling.
The Warden of Camp Green Lake is on a hunt for the long-lost loot of Kissin' Kate Barlow. Years ago, Kate Barlow had been a schoolteacher who fell in love with Sam, a black man, society told her she shouldn't. After Sam was killed by the townspeople, Kate turned her back on the community that could put restriction on love, and chose to live a life of crime.
Now, the Warden uses the boys in her care as a means to her own gain. And, although they don't know it, they dig holes to help her finding the treasure about which she is obsessed. But the bonds that grow between the boys at Camp Green Lake help Stanley learn that some things, like friendship, are worth standing up for. Stanley manages to find the lost treasure, expose the Warden, and finally break his family's curse by fulfilling the promise made to the fortune-teller.
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