Product Description

Armpit and X-Ray are living in Austin, Texas. It is three years since they left the confines of Camp Green Lake Detention Centre and Armpit is taking small steps to turn his life around. He is working for a landscape gardener because he is good at digging holes, he is going to school and he is enjoying his first proper romance, but is he going to be able to stay out of trouble when there is so much building up against him? In this brilliantly plotted and exciting novel, Armpit is joined by many vibrant new characters, and is learning what it takes to stay on course, and that doing the right thing is never the wrong choice.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #154248 in Books
• Published on: 2006-01-16
• Released on: 2006-01-16
• Original language: English
• Binding: Hardcover
• 272 pages

Independent on Sunday
Louis Sachar is one of the few new masters of American fiction

Sunday Times (Children's Book of the Week)
'Small Steps has Sachar's familiar ease, intelligent humour, suspense and humanity'

Independent on Sunday
'Louis Sachar is one of the few new masters of American fiction'

Customer Reviews

Catch up with Armpit and X-Ray
I wrote a review of this a couple of weeks ago but for some reason it has never appeared. Fingers crossed this time...

This book is a sequel to the brilliant 'Holes' and follows two of the Camp Green Lake in-mates, Armpit and X-Ray, as they try to make it in the outside world. Armpit is trying to earn an honest living but he is soon drawn into X-Ray's latest scam, touting tickets for teenage singing sensation Kaira DeLeon. This leads to plenty of adventures, an unlikely romance and some uncomfortable brushes with the law. I'm not going to comment on the plot because I am much too old to be in the target audience for this book - the important thing is that my 12-year old son thought is was 'brilliant'. What I really enjoyed was the way Louis Sachar gives you a view of the world from a different angle, in this case through the eyes of black kids. I can't tell if the view is accurate because I am neither black nor young but it's just the fact that he tries that's refreshing.

I could only give this book 4 stars because it's not as good as 'Holes' - but what could be?

Really great read - highly recommended!
As this book is the sequel to "Holes" I expected it to relate a lot more to the story. However, "Small Steps" is a completely new story involving one of the more minor characters from "Holes", meaing that it isn't at all necessary to have read that book first.
It's a great story that is very easy to read and get into and I found it hard to put down! It tells the story of Armpit, a young man attempting to put his life back together after serving a sentence at Camp Green Lake. However, his plans of taking small steps are thrown upside-down when he gets involved in ticket scalping and meets a famous and beautiful rock star...
Fantastic read for children or adults - I loved it!

Just as good as the brilliant original!
Another masterpiece by Louis Sachar, once again proving that she is an excellent author by describing things such as feeling, locations and people. The only ever-so-small problem I found with this book is that Louis Sachar takes out most of the characters from the original book and tells the story of two characters from the first book, this is really okay though because Louis describes the characters lives and personallities really well. You don't haft to read the first book 'Holes' to read this, but also as well as this I would reccomend 'Holes' to any young reader out there. I would reccomend this book to 12 - 16 year olds, since its to descriptive and complacated for young children and not for adults since there is no language or horror, also the main characters are 12 - 16 years old.

Remember Armpit and X-Ray from holes? The story is based on them. It is three years since they left the confines of Camp Green Lake Detention Centre and Armpit is taking small steps to turn his life around. He is working for a landscape gardener because he is good at digging holes, he is going to school and he is enjoying his first proper romance, but is he going to be able to stay out of trouble when there is so much building up against him, including X-Ray wanting him to be in his latist scam which is to tout tickets for teenage singing sensation Kaira DeLeon. This leads them into all types of mischief, including unfriendly brushes with the law.
When certain things happen to the boys, bad or good, Louis presents the text to us in a very reaistis touching way. Such as when Armpit experiences Romance, or when the him and X-Ray get caught by the police the author describes the moments of pain and happyness exceedingly well. In this book, you really can imagine the events happening and picture them in your own way, also you can compare the feeling and character descriptions to real life.

Storyline: 9/10
Description: 10/10
Dialogue: 10/10

Overall: 9.5/10