YA review: Never Fall Down by Patricia McCormick

When this novel opens, Arn is a young man in Cambodia in 1975. The Khmer Rouge are just beginning to take over the Asian country, and we see the impact the new regime has on the country through Arn's eyes and thoughts. Soldiers march everyone from Arn's village into the countryside, separating families, killing randomly, and forcing those who survive to work gruelling hours with almost nothing to eat or drink. Arn is a survivor, and quickly learns that to fall down at while working the rice fields in these camps means death. Patricia McCormick writes in a broken English, with no plurals and missing articles, much like Arn himself speaks. Arn is a very real person, as are most of the people in the novel. McCormick interviewed many of the people for the book, and travelled with Arn Chorn Pond to Cambodia where many of the events occurred. The book is classified as fiction, but most of it is very real. It is based on Arn's story, with some of the events open to McCormick's artistic license. Bottom line: this is a fantastic and heart-wrenching book about a topic most teens have likely heard little about. Arn Chorn Pond has been speaking about the atrocities of the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia through Amnesty International and other groups for nearly thirty years, and through McCormick will reach a wider audience of teens who can envision the horrible drama of what he went through at roughly the same age he went through it. Like Sold, Never Fall Down is another powerful book that uncovers the horrors of a world unknown to many in America.