Small Steps

By: Louis Sachar

Fiction

*I chose to read this book because it is somewhat a squeal to the book holes, in that it has two of the characters from the book, Armpit and X-Ray and how they are continuing their life after Camp Greenlake. One of the students in the field was reading it, and I loved the book Holes so I thought I would ready it. It talks about drugs in parts and has some young adult content so I would not recommend this books to younger grades.*

~This book was about a young man named Theodor or as his friends called him Armpit. He has gotten out of a juvenile correction facility called Camp Greenlake where his punishment was to dig holes all day long. He now works for a landscaping company digging holes, but he is good at it and likes making good honest money. He is going to summer school also because he wants to get his high school diploma and has to make up for the time he was at Camp Greenlakc. His therapist told him to just take small steps, one day at a time, and he does just that. One day his old buddy X-Ray, who was also at Camp Greenlake, comes by and wants Armpit to make some money by buying tickets to the Kiara DeLeon concert and selling the tickets for more than what they bought them for. Armpit reluctantly agrees and X-Ray sells all the tickets except for two. Armpit decides to take a girl Tatiana from school to the concert but she backs out last minute, so he takes his best friend and neighbor, Ginny who has cerebral palsy to the concert. Armpit didnt know, but X-Ray had given him 2 counterfeit tickets so he could make money off the two he was going to give to Armpit. Ginny ends up having a seizure and the police try to arrest armpit for counterfeit tickets and for drugging Ginny. Luckily, they finally listen to armpit and let him help her. They end up getting to meet Kiara DeLeon and they all become friends. They start a big investigation on the counterfeit tickets to catch the guy who sold them. Kiara starts to like Armpit and wants to have breakfast with him. They really start to like eachother and Kiara writes him letters. Finally Kiara offers to fly Armpit to San Fransisco to see her. While in San Fransisco, Kiara and Armpit get in a fight. He see's that her door is open when he gets back to the hotel and walks in to see her getting beaten with a bat by her manager and stepfather El Genius. He wanted to kill her so that he could take all of her money. Armpit stops El Genius and calls the police, everyone ends up being ok and El Genius is put in jail. Armpit does not here from Kiara but her new song "Small Steps" says everything.

~This would be a good book to do a character analysis of. Have students talk about Armpits character and if his actions reflect on his character. Also have students talk or write about whether or not they think X-Ray is a good friend to keep around. X-Ray seems to always find a way to get Armpit in trouble. Talk to students of how important it is to have good friends that are good influences on you. It would also be good to just do reading comprehension questions and have a book club conversations about the book. It has some good real life learning situations that would be good for students to understand.