Small Steps (Hardcover)

~ (Author)

Editorial Reviews

From School Library Journal

Grade 5-8–This sequel to Holes (Farrar, 1998) focuses on Armpit, an African-American former resident of Tent D at Camp Green Lake. It's two years after his release, and the 16-year-old is still digging holes, although now getting paid for it, working for a landscaper in his hometown of Austin, TX. He's trying to turn his life around, knowing that everyone expects the worst of him and that he must take small steps to keep moving forward. When X-Ray, his friend and fellow former detainee at the juvenile detention center, comes up with a get-rich-quick scheme involving scalping tickets to a concert by teenage pop star Kaira DeLeon, Armpit fronts X-Ray the money. He takes his best friend and neighbor, Ginny, a 10-year-old with cerebral palsy, to the concert and ends up meeting Kaira, getting romantically involved, and finally becoming a hero by saving her life when her stepfather tries to kill her and frame him. Small Steps has a completely different tone than Holes. It lacks the bizarre landscape, the magical realism, the tall-tale quality, and the heavy irony. Yet, there is still much humor, social commentary, and a great deal of poignancy. Armpit's relationship with Ginny, the first person to care for him, look up to him, and give his life meaning, is a compassionate one. Like Holes, Small Steps is a story of redemption, of the triumph of the human spirit, of self-sacrifice, and of doing the right thing. Sachar is a master storyteller who creates memorable characters.–Connie Tyrrell Burns, Mahoney Middle School, South Portland, ME
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist

*Starred Review* Gr. 5-8. In rougher days, Armpit, named for an ill-placed scorpion bite, bullied a new member of his work-camp team. That kid was Stanley Yelnats, whose travails in Holes earned Sachar a 1998 Newbery Medal and National Book Award. Though Armpit is now 17, the tone of his experiences remains squarely middle-grade, and like Stanley, he proves an appealing, hapless character buffeted by others' schemes and shouldering the burdens of personal history--in this case, the bruisingly real challenges facing an African American teenager with a criminal history. Armpit takes his counselor's suggestions seriously ("Just take small steps and keep moving forward"), but he nonetheless becomes entangled in returning character X-Ray's concert ticket-scalping enterprise, resulting in a serendipitous meeting with a bubble-gum pop star and an awkward role in a police investigation. This is both less experimental and less streamlined than Holes;Armpit's bond with a girl with cerebral palsy, for instance, often seems too clearly intended to reveal his soft heart. Even so, Holes fans will be thrilled by the tightening of the plot elements to a single, suspenseful point, and they will eagerly follow the sometimes stumbling, sometimes sprinting progress of Sachar's fallible yet heroic protagonist. To learn more about the author's decision to mine Holes for new inspiration, see the adjacent "Story behind the Story" feature. Jennifer Mattson
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 9-12
  
• Hardcover: 272 pages
• Publisher: Delacorte Books for Young Readers; First edition. edition (January 10, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0385733143
• ISBN-13: 978-0385733144
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.7 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (106 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #228,872 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

  Popular in this category: (What's this?)

  #10 in

  Books > Teens > Authors, A-Z > ( S ) > Sachar, Louis

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

20 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Inch by inch, row by row, September 14, 2006

By	E. R. Bird "Ramseelbird" (Manhattan, NY) - See all my reviews (TOP 50 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

Put yourself in Louis Sachar's shoes. You've been writing children's books for a number of years now and one day divine inspiration hits you and you come up with what could easily be called the greatest children's book of the last 25 years, "Holes". It sweeps the nation, gets a coveted Newbery Award, and is subsequently on every required reading list in the USA from now until doomsday. Now it's time to write a sequel. You do so and it falls into the lap of an average everyday children's librarian and sometime reviewer. And unbeknownst to you, Louis Sachar, you have just placed this perfectly nice graduate of an MLIS program in a bit of a pickle. Ideally, I want to be the kind of person who judges every title at hand on a one-on-one basis. I want to pretend that I've never read anything else by this author and that the book I am reading is its own separate entity. But with a book that has even the slightest connection to "Holes", this charade becomes almost impossible. "Holes" was a force of nature in and of itself, and "Small Steps", while a perfectly nice book, cannot even be breathed in the same breath as its predecessor. My advice? Give "Small Steps" to someone who hasn't read "Holes" yet.

His name is Armpit. Okay, that's not exactly true. His name is Theodore but back at Camp Green Lake he acquired his current nickname. Now he's out, finishing high school, and he has a pretty great job doing landscape work after school. That is, until X-Ray shows up. Another former Camp Green Lake inmate, X-Ray has a ticket scalping scheme that he's sure will earn beaucoup de bucks for the both of them. That is, if Armpit's willing to put up the cash. Aiding in this wacky investment, our hero is soon engaged in a series of events that culminate with him befriending/dating Kaira DeLeon. Kaira, for the record, is the greatest pop star alive, but by growing close to her Armpit is having a hard time putting his other troubles behind him. And when Kaira's unscrupulous manager wants to use Armpit's record to his advantage, the kid may be headed for deep trouble indeed.

It is a little hard to figure out why Armpit, who comes off as such a sweetie here, ever got sent to Camp Green Lake in the first place. There are some references a popcorn incident, but they're brief. The advantage to this, though, is that Sachar's brevity on the subject certainly makes it clear that Armpit is just an average joe caught up in a racist system. And Mr. Sachar's willingness to talk about race in this manner comes across as immensely refreshing, I have to say. So many children's authors pussyfoot around the issue, maybe bringing it up if the book is set in the past. Sachar, on the other hand, is willing to point out that if a large black teen is walking down the street, there are going to be people who cross to the other side. That said, he did it better in "Holes". "Holes", showed racism, both subtle and blatant. It managed to tie in the entire American system of racism from slavery times onward. "Small Steps", falls far more on the blatant side of the equation. There's nothing wrong with that, of course. It just means the story feels less whole.

Aside from the topic of racism, this is also a book willing to make reference to the current situation in Iraq. Moreover, it makes more than one sly reference to the most common bit of racist currency available today: Anti-Muslim feeling. When Armpit and X-Ray feel that the cops are on to their ticket scheme, they manage to try to shine that attention away from themselves and onto a non-existent character named Habib. Good old turban wearing, ticket scalping Habib. The unspoken thought is that if they name an imaginary Muslim to be the real scalper, maybe the cops will feel that there are bigger fish to fry somewhere. It doesn't work, but it manages to say loads about how X-Ray and Armpit's minds work.

Still, there were structural problems with the book. It was very odd how Sachar kept tossing the point of view hither and thither throughout the text with very little rhyme or reason. One minute we're in Armpit's head, another minute we're following Kaira, and another we are in the bedroom of the girl Armpit likes at school. And I hope you like figures, by the way. This book has a whole heaping helpful of economics in it that may cause the average set of eyeballs to glaze over for a moment or two. Finally, the bad guy's scheme in this book is a teensy bit flawed. Kaira's manager intends to have his star charge hurt. The only problem is, he himself hired her bodyguard. So when that guard shows up, it shouldn't be as great a surprise to the manager as the book makes it out to be. Altogether, these are small qualms, but the book had the potential to feel so much tighter and whole. They rankle with the reading.

In the end I kind of felt like, "Small Steps", was trying to be more of a teen read than "Holes" ever was. Always taking into account that the "Holes" readership grerw older, this makes a fair amount of sense. And teen-like elements, such as references to sex, are nice and straightforward but I suspect the real readership will still turn out to be "Holes" lovers of the younger stripe. For the most part, "Small Steps" is able to find its footing and doesn't slip up too often. It also has Sachar's trademark readability quotient, which doesn't hurt things any. From sentence one the book is go go go. So while I find that I cannot block the memory of "Holes" completely from my mind, I at least can give "Small Steps" a wary thumbs up. It could be better, but it's pretty darn sweet as it is.

24 of 26 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Major Departure, but a FANTASTIC book., March 15, 2006

By	Blake Petit "Novelist, Comixtreme.com columni... (Ama, Louisiana United States) - See all my reviews (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

This book, the follow-up to Sachar's blockbuster Holes, is a major departure from the first novel. It's not exactly a sequel, but rather a new story about two of the minor characters from the earlier book. (Folks holping to find out what happened to Stanley or Zero will be disappointed -- they're not even mentioned in this book, except for Armpit referencing that "Sploosh" was invented by the father of someone he was at Camp Green Lake with). Set two years after the earlier novel, Armpit is now trying to graduate from High School, working and staying on the straight and narrow. Until his old buddy X-Ray shows up with a way to make him some real money... just some old-fashioned ticket scalping.

Like I said, this is VERY different from Holes. That book was part mystery, part generational novel, even part western. This is more of a straightforward story -- no mystery, a hint of crime drama. While Holes dealt with some heavy issues, such as race relations and juvenile detention, this book goes even further, dealing with drug issues, cerebral palsy and even (briefly) sex. None of this is intended as a criticism, but it is important that parents getting this book for their children realize how much more mature this book is than the earlier novel.

That said, this is a really strong book. Armpit and X-Ray were mostly placeholder characters in the first book. Here they're fleshed out very well and joined by other strong characters. You find out why they were in jail in the first place (and unlike Stanley in the first book, they were not falsely accused), and you see that good people can do stupid things sometimes. The ending is more bittersweet than Holes as well, but it leaves you with a real sense of hope at the same time.

It's hard to believe this is the same Louis Sachar who once gave us Sideways Stories From Wayside School, and while at times he tries a little too hard to be "relevant," he's really emerging as a strong, intelligent writer, one who gives young readers a lot more to think about than most writers out there. I'll be anxious to see what he gives us next.

35 of 43 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars SEQUEL TAKES "SMALL STEPS" WITH "SWEET-FEET", January 11, 2006

By	Kevin J. Loria (New Orleans, LA USA) - See all my reviews (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

Louis Sachar the award-winning author of over twenty fiction and educational books for children including the Marvin Redpost and Wayside School series. Holes, won the prestigious National Book Award, the Newbery Medal, sold 6 million copies, and was successfully translated to film. Now we finally learn what life is like AFTER CAMP GREEN LAKE. "Small Steps" is a follow-up to Holes, it features ARMPIT aka Theodore Johnson, still digging holes, but now as a landscaper, trying to finish up high school. Armpit's new life is turned upside when X-Ray shows up with a ticket scalping scheme involving teen pop star, Kaira DeLeon. Armpit, who has been trying to take his own "small steps" to the straight and narrow, finds himself once again running afoul of the law.
Eight years after Sachar's breakout hit with Holes, he needs to take big steps to fill "sweet-feet's" proverbal shoes. Does Sachar manage it? Yes, mostly, "Small Steps" is a good book, but not a great one. Sachar's voice is just as clear, and the situations are more realistic. He is most successful with relationships, like Armpit and Ginny a 10-year-old girl with cerebral palsy whose family lives on the other side of his family's East Austin duplex. The publisher should have resisted the temptation to call "Small Steps" a "companion to Holes" to reduce heavy expectations... especially since the obvious follow-up would be the story of Stanley, Zero and their newfound millions, instead of focusing on one of Camp Green Lake's less appealing characters.

.