After a hiatus of some seven years, Sachar returns with a companion to Holes (1998) that places one of Stanley's fellow "campers" on center stage. Armpit is living with his parents in Austin, having set for himself five rehabilitative "small steps:" "1. Graduate from high school. 2. Get a job. 3. Save his money. 4. Avoid situations that may become violent. And 5. Lose the name Armpit." When fellow ex-camper X-Ray persuades him to join him in a scheme scalping tickets for a Kaira DeLeon concert, steps 1-4 are severely threatened--step 5 seeming to be permanently out of reach. Armpit is a genuinely sympathetic character, as is the teen singing phenom Kaira; the third-person narrative shifts focus from one to the other as their paths inexorably, and incredibly, draw closer and closer. If Holes invoked Vonnegut in its narrative complexity and deadpan delivery, this offering more closely resembles more straightforward crime fiction. Although readers may find themselves missing the tricky layers of its predecessor, any novel in which the good guys so righteously win should be happily welcomed in its own right. (Fiction. 12+) Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

This companion to Holes follows a former detainee at Camp Green Lake Juvenile Correctional Facility (where he was sent after a spilled-popcorn-mishap-turned brawl at a cinema), in his life on the outside. Armpit now works for a landscape company while he finishes up high school. The earnest teen is back on track, in no small part due to the mutually restorative friendship he has forged with Ginny, a 10-year-old neighbor born with cerebral palsy. This bright, perceptive girl has given Armpit a great deal ("For the first time in his life, there was someone who looked up to him, who cared about him") and has "released him from his anger." X-Ray, another Camp Green Lake alum, nearly derails Armpit's new life when he convinces Armpit to buy into a ticket-scalping scheme for a concert by teen rock star Kaira-a scheme that goes horribly awry. In a rather contrived plot twist, Armpit winds up meeting Kaira who then falls for Armpit-and he for her. Even less likely is the novel's final, sensational melodrama (Kaira's evil stepfather and manager futilely tries to murder her and frame Armpit for the crime). Sachar does inject some credible intrigue here (notably surrounding the potential legal consequences of Armpit's and X-Ray's involvement in the ticket scam) and effectively emphasizes the importance of taking "small steps." Unfortunately, although Armpit's steady small steps result in some big strides, this is a disappointingly flat spin-off of Sachar's resonant Newbery winner. Ages 10-up. (Jan.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

(Middle School) Although Sachar ended Holes (rev. 9/98) with the tease that ""you will have to fill in the holes yourself,"" here is a sequel of sorts, as Stanley Yelnats's fellow Camp Green Lake inmates Armpit and X-Ray attempt to make their way in the world after being sprung. Armpit is working for a landscaping company and just wants to save his money and keep his nose clean, but X-Ray remains the perennial hustler and talks his old campmate into a ticket-scalping scheme. The tickets are for a concert by one Kaira DeLeon, a Beyonc+-like teen idol whose life -- alert the media -- isn't nearly as glamorous as it looks. Armpit and X-Ray aside, Small Steps is no Holes, and while it would probably be impossible for a sequel to approach that book's genius, this one yields to the first on all counts and fails on its own terms as well: the writing is flat, the characterization (as in the case of Armpit's best friend, a plucky disabled girl) is stereotypical, the plotting is formulaic, and the crime-doesn't-pay theme is shopworn. Fans of teen soap operas might enjoy the romance between Armpit and Kaira, but it's pretty tame stuff; Holes fans will just find it icky. (c) Copyright 2010. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted. All rights reserved.

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 2006 Booklist

Gr 5-8-Now that all the boys at Camp Green Lake have stopped digging Holes (Farrar, 1998), Louis Sachar tells how one of the former inmates is taking Small Steps (Delacorte, 2006) to get his life back on track. In this sequel to Sachar's Newbery Award-winning novel about a correctional facility gone wrong, Armpit, a powerfully built African American is working, going back to school, and trying to avoid the angry outbursts that landed him in juvenile detention. The Texas teen is doing well and he's even befriended his ten-year-old neighbor, Ginny, who has cerebral palsy. Then another former inmate, X-Ray, convinces him to invest his savings in a legal, but less than savory, concert ticket scalping scheme. After a slow start, the two young men make money and Armpit, a.k.a Theodore, invites Ginny to see teen songstress Kaira DeLeon at the concert. But when X-Ray gives him counterfeit tickets and Ginny has a seizure, it looks like Armpit is back in trouble. Fortunately, the young singer invites the pair back stage and starts to fall for Armpit. Everything looks "cool" when Kaira invites him to her San Francisco concerts, but Armpit is about to be framed by the teen star's unscrupulous manager and an embezzling assistant. Armpit shows his courage as the story heats up and moves to its lesson-learned conclusion. Narrator Curtis McClarin is solidly believable as a hip teen, an authoritative adult, and a speech-impaired child. Beneath the story's humorous dialogue and some beyond-your-wildest dreams scenarios, Small Steps acknowledges the realities of ex-inmate life and the value of doing the right thing. A wise choice for all middle school and public libraries.-Barbara Wysocki, Cora J. Belden Library, Rocky Hill, CT (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.