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 Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.