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Author's Desk: Armpit Is Back

By Jennifer Marino

When he was a college student in 1976, Louis Sachar helped out at an elementary school. Sachar enjoyed spending time with the kids so much that he decided to try writing a children's book. That book, Sideways Stories from Wayside School, became the first of more than 20 books that he has written for children.

Sachar's latest, Small Steps, hit bookstores this week. It features some of the same characters that readers met in his 1999 best-selling book Holes, which won a National Book Award as well as a Newbery Medal. Four years later, Holes was made into a popular movie. In Small Steps, 17-year-old Armpit is trying to turn his life around two years after being released from the Camp Green Lake Juvenile Correctional Facility. His friend X-Ray comes up with a get-rich-quick scheme that leads Armpit to a chance meeting with a pop star, Kaira DeLeon. Armpit's life will never be the same. "It's a fun, exciting story with characters that you really care about," Sachar told TFK.

The author's greatest challenge in writing Small Steps was portraying the hardships, including the stereotypes, that are faced by the African-American main character. "I want kids to try to see everyone as a human being," he says. He believes that all kids will be able to relate to Armpit. "All of my books have been about kids who were sort of misunderstood--the underdog type. People will like Armpit for who he is."

Sachar also hopes to foster children's love of reading. "A good book becomes a part of you," he says. He does not yet know what his next book will be about. But he hopes that Small Steps, like Holes, will get its shot on the big screen--so long as he gets to write the screenplay!

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