Book Review: Small Steps

Small Steps, by, Louis Sachar, Delacorte, New York 2006.  This is the third book based on the Holes theme written by Louis Sachar.  This book focuses on the character Arm Pit and his relationship with a famous singer Kaira De Leon.  He and X-Ray, also from Holes enter into a ticket scalping arrangement with Arm Pit putting up the money to buy the tickets from his landscaping job, and X-Ray putting in the selling skills.  They purchased twelve tickets, and when they only have two left to sell, Arm Pit decides to take his friend, his next door neighbor girl who has cerebral palsy.  However X-Ray balks.  He has been promised a good amount of money for the tickets.  However X-Ray brings the tickets--which turn out to be photostatic copied counterfeits.  X-Ray sold the tickets after all. 
The scuffle of when Arm Pit is arrested, leads to the performer noticing him, and his friend Ginny.  She invites them back stage, and then onto the stage behind the sound system to see the concert. 
This book is slow at the first, but after the concert the pace really picks up.  There even is an attempted murder and lots of violence, and turns out Arm Pit (Theodore) ends up a hero, although we don't know if he gets the girl.  Kaira records one last song, which tells the story of she and Arm Pit--taking "Small Steps."

Book Review: ****^ Holes

Holes

When I finished watching Holes, and they said it was based on a book, I determined I needed to read it.  The book was written by Louis Sachar and published in 1999.  This is another Newberry Medal book.
I really enjoyed this book.  The movie follows the book very well.  There were a couple things about the character Stanley Yelnats that I picked up from the book.  First is that he was overweight.  Shia Labeouf doesn’t come across as overweight.  The second is that he was a bit of a wimp even though he was large.   The reason the lawyer was able to get him off, is because he was in the bathroom being tormented by a bully (smaller size than he) who came forward as a witness and “He was innocent.”  The reason the family could afford a lawyer in the end, and not at the beginning, is because their father finally came up with something that worked.  It may have been coincidental, but father made his discovery the same day Stanley carried Hector Zeroni up the hill.  When Stanley went back to get his shovel, he realized that he had carried him up the hill much farther  than he remembered.  I think Camp Green Lake ended up being a good experience for Stanley.  He had filled out from all the shoveling, and could no longer be considered a big weakling.  I also don’t think he was going to take any more guff from bullies.  He also made a friend in Hector.  The characters are all enjoyable and interesting.  I really like the flashback characters, Kissing Kate and the onion seller Sam, who is a Black Man.