| Title | : | Never Fall Down |
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | |
| ISBN | : | 0061730939 |
| ISBN-10 | : | 9780061730931 |
| Language | : | English |
| Format Type | : | Hardcover |
| Number of Pages | : | 216 |
| Publication | : | First published May 8, 2012 |
| Awards | : | Rhode Island Teen Book Award (2014), Deutscher Jugendliteraturpreis Preis der Jugendjury (2016), National Book Award Finalist Young People's Literature (2012), Goodreads Choice Award Young Adult Fiction (2012) |
Based on the true story of Cambodian advocate Arn Chorn-Pond, and authentically told from his point of view as a young boy, this is an achingly raw and powerful historical novel about a child of war who becomes a man of peace. It includes an author's note and acknowledgments from Arn Chorn-Pond himself.
When soldiers arrive in his hometown, Arn is just a normal little boy. But after the soldiers march the entire population into the countryside, his life is changed forever.
Arn is separated from his family and assigned to a labor camp: working in the rice paddies under a blazing sun, he sees the other children dying before his eyes. One day, the soldiers ask if any of the kids can play an instrument. Arn's never played a note in his life, but he volunteers.
This decision will save his life, but it will pull him into the very center of what we know today as the Killing Fields. And just as the country is about to be liberated, Arn is handed a gun and forced to become a soldier.
Never Fall Down Reviews
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I knew about a movie titled The Killing Fields for years, but never knew that the movie was about one of the world's worst genocidal atrocities. This past summer I spent some time in both Siem Reap and Phnom Penh, Cambodia during a month-long backpacking trip through Southeast Asia. We went to the Killing Fields at the Choeung Ek Genocidal Center, and I walked around in a stunned silence as I listened to the audioguide in my ear describe what I was looking at: The Killing Tree, where the Khmer Rouge slammed babies head-first against its trunk before throwing them in a ditch, enormous ditches that marked mass graves of almost 9,000 people at that one site, how bone fragments and shreds of cloth still surface after the rainy season and a Buddhist stupa (memorial) filled with human skulls, many of which have marks of being assaulted by an ax.
Never in my life have I felt like more of an ignorant American. How did I never learn about such recent history (1975-1979...people are just NOW being brought to trial for their involvement) in school?? The whole experience was so incomprehensible, this is actually my first attempt to put any of it into words.
So when I heard about this new YA novel, based on the true survival story of Arn Chorn-Pond, a few months after I got home, I couldn't wait to get my hands on a copy in hopes of better understanding what I saw and learned about at Choeung Ek.
It's hard not to give this book 5 stars, even though it was really hard to read. I wanted to cry or throw up after reading practically every page, and it's the first book I've read where I actually found myself questioning whether the material is "appropriate" for a young adult audience. Then I frequently reminded myself that this is, for the most part, Arn's story. This is what he really lived through in his attempt to survive the Khmer Rouge through his musical ingenious and pure luck. And everyone, young and old, should read his story so we can better understand what human beings are capable of, what they can survive and how we need to prevent history like this from ever repeating itself. -
general piece of advice to anyone who approaches the blank box with the intention of writing a pleasing-to-the-eye review: do not read
one of mike reynolds' reviews first. it will make you walk away from the computer in utter discouragement.
arn chorn-pond was a young child when the khmer rouge decided to unleash on cambodia a mayhem that resulted in the extermination of one quarter of the population. notice that the khmer rouge were themselves cambodian. since the book is told from arn's point of view, in the first person, and arn is a young child, you don't get an explanation for why this madness happened, so for that i remand you to
wikipedia, where i will go myself after i finish writing this review.
as a grown up and a survivor, arn has been and continues to be an activist on behalf of his country and his people, which, i understand, are quite some way from healing (the internecine genocide happened in the mid-70s). patricia mccormick found him, interviewed him for two years, did a ton of supplemental research, then wrote this book in arn's own voice. arn never mastered english so the book is in broken english.
i tend to have little patience for westerners who tell other peoples' stories. i figure those other peoples can tell their own stories and the orientalizing and ogling comes across as invariably pornographic to me. not this time. although she put her own name as the sole author, mccormick acknowledges implicit co-authorship with arn chorn-pond in the back flap. mostly, though, the book is so sparse, so short, so perfectly distilled, you feel there is no pleasure in mccormick's writing except insofar as she can reproduce arn's voice. and this voice, gosh, this voice is amazing. truly genuinely amazing.
i have always been lousy at learning history, but i figure that one can learn history from stories people tell you and from stories you read in novels. i know something, now, about the cambodian genocide. i know something about the unspeakable trauma of child soldiers. i know something about what it means for a kid who has killed killed killed to be brought to america and asked to be an american kid. i know something about the terrible violence that comes not only from forcing children to kill but also from forcing them to go back to being children and behaving as such. these children have wielded unconscionable power. these children have led platoons. these children have made terrible, open-eyed, clear-minded choices. these children have survived unimaginable conditions through smarts, cunning, and a great capacity for reading people and circumstances. there children are geniuses and experts. you can't take a child like that and stick him in an american high school.
this book has made me think about our desperate compulsion to infantilize children, so that children have to find ways to be the much more mature beings they are in ways that are hidden from us. children, it seems, are asked from very early on to be multiple creatures: creatures that please their parents' understanding of childhood, their teachers' understanding of childhood, the commercial world's understanding of childhood, and, finally, and hopefully, their own understanding of themselves. i got all this from reading
Kathryn Bond Stockton's
The Queer Child, or Growing Sideways in the Twentieth Century and then reflecting back on my own bedraggled childhood. in the light of stockton's book and of my own thinking back, this book was immensely poignant to me. also, it's gorgeous. i am now a patricia mccormick fan. -
سایه سرخ مرگ!
کشتار قریب به دو میلیون نفر در طول کمتر از چهار سال عددی بزرگ است که تاریخ از آن حیرت میکند. عددی که بزرگترین خونریزهای جهان هم در برابر آن حتما متحیر میشوند و زانو میزنند. این نسلکشی گسترده در حالی صورت گرفته که «خِمِرهای سرخ» میخواستند «تاریخ صفر» را پایه بگذارند. کار اجباری و نظم سازمان یافته برخاسته از باورهای اشتراکی مکتب مائو سبب شد که شاهد جنایت بزرگی علیه انسانها باشیم.
کامبوجیهایی که به مرور تصفیه شدند و فقط کسانی ماندند که برای «برنج» تلاش میکردند. کپههای جنازه زیر خاک و گورهای دسته جمعی و مرگ با تیشه همه تصاویری است که از روزهای وحشت بزرگ در کامبوج باقی مانده است. هرکس سواد داشته باشد، موسیقی بداند، دستانش زحمت نکشیده باشند، پوست صورتش به طبقه اشراف شباهت داشته باشد و آفتابسوخته نباشد (قهوهای نباشد) محکوم به مرگ است تا در روزهای پس از تاریخ صفر زندگی اشتراکی برای باقی جامعه تجربه مثبتی رقم بخورد.
کتاب «هرگز نیفت» که نشر آرادمان آن را منتشر کرده روایتی است از این ماجرا! ماجرای کودتا علیه پادشاهی سینگهام در کامبوج و تسلط خمرهای سرخ بر مردم. روزهای کار بیوقفه در مزارع برنج و کشتار!
کتابی که روایتی اول شخص آن را شکل داده و راوی خود یکی از کسانی است که توانسته از چنگال سیاه مرگِ خمرهای سرخ تحت رهبری «پل پوت» زنده بماند و راوی روزهایی باشد که سینما میرفته و زندگی برایش رنگ داشته تا روزهایی که جز لباسهای یکشکل سیاهرنگ و موسیقی تشکیلاتی چیز دیگری وجود نداشته است.
این کتاب حاصل گفتوگوی پاتریشیا مککورمیک، خبرنگار آمریکایی با شخصیت راوی (آرِن) است. او حتی برای اینکه شرایط را بتواند در کتابش منعکس کند در کامبوج زندگی کرده و روایتی که شکل داده اثرگذار و مایه همذاتپنداری خواننده با کتاب است.
لحن محاوره این کتاب سبب میشود خواننده بیشتر خود را با کتاب و راوی آن نزدیک ببیند و حس نزدیکی به راوی را القا کند زیرا خواننده خود را به واسطه لحن شنونده بیواسطه روایت شخصیت اصلی میبیند.
مرگبارترین اتفاقی که میشود سراغ گرفت در این کتاب در برابر دیدگان خواننده این کتاب نمایش داده میشود. کشتار ۲۵ درصد از جمعیت یک کشور در یک تصفیه شبهانقلابی و رها کردن آنها در گودالهای مرگ تصویری هولناک است که در «هرگز نیفت» به چشم میآید.
تصویرسازی و توصیف جزئیات در این کتاب به قدری با دقت صورت گرفته که خواننده حس میکند که خود در صحنه حضور دارد. هرچند در بخشهایی به قدری عمق فاجعه زیاد است که باور کردن آنها دشوار است، ولی اگر اندکی تامل کنیم، میبینیم که باور کردن آنه�� نهتنها دشوار نیست؛ بلکه راوی از پس توصیف جزئیات یک حادثه برنیامده است.
شخصیت راوی (آرن) در بخشی وارد گروه موسیقی میشود تا سرودهای انگیزهبخش برای اهداف تشکیلات بنوازد. هنری که به مروری تبدیل به ابزاری برای سرپوش گذاشتن بر جنایتهای خمرها شده و قرار است به واسطه آن صدای ضرباتی که تیشه بر جمجمه افراد وارد میآورد را خفه کند. در واقع این کتاب که در ژانر مستندنگاری است انعکاس دهنده صدای ضربات دیکتاتوری شبهانقلابی بر پیکره بشریت است.
«هرگز نیفت» از آن حیث که اثری است مستند، زمینه همراهی خواننده را زودتر فراهم میکند و روند توضیح اتفاقات به شکلی است که خواننده پابهپای راوی در دل حادثه وارد میشود. روایتی از جنگلهای انبوه کامبوج و آب و هوای طاقتفرسایی که برای افراد بزرگسال خارج از توانشان است چه رسد برای کودکان و دختران کم سال!
کودکانی که اسلحه دست گرفتند و تبدیل به تلهای برای شکار ویتنامیها شدند. کودکانی که مسیرهای طولانی در جنگل راهپیمایی کردند تا بتوانند جیره غذایی خود را دریافت کنند. اینها تصاویری است که این کلمات توانایی توصیف آنها را ندارد و کتاب بهترین راوی برای نشان دادن عمق فاجعه است. به نظر میرسد که زیادهخواهی عاملی است که چنین صفحاتی را در دفتر تاریخ ثبت میکند.
این کتاب از آن دست کتابهایی است که نشان میدهد مهم نیست آرمان و هدفی که در سر دارید چیست؛ مهم این است که از چه مسیری برای رسیدن به آن اقدام میکنید که اگر این مسیر از روی خون انسانها بگذرد آرمانتان زیر سوال خواهد رفت. -
Part audiobook via overdrive app, part paperback
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“You show you care, you die.
You show you fear, you die.
You show nothing, maybe you live.”
“Long time I been on my own, but now really I'm alone. I survive the killing, the starving, all the hate of the Khmer Rouge, but I think maybe now I will die of this, of broken heart.”
“All the time you fighting, you think only of how to survive. All the time you survive, you wonder why you don’t die. But now my life can be something different. Now, in America, I don’t have to fight. I don’t have to survive. I can chose a new thing: to live.”
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An important story to tell but the way she chose tell it made it hard to get into the story sometimes. I felt kept at a distance during some things that should have had me feeling for Arn and what him and the others were going through.
Not that I had a stone heart throughout all this, I just wasn't as invested as I wanted to be.
I seem to be in the minority here and that's okay (we all don't love the same things after all)... would still recommend. You may feel differently about it. -
As was true with her National Book Award finalist,
Sold, Patricia McCormick uses her fiction writing skills and her journalistic writing ability to share a child victim's harrowing tale. In this case it is Arn Chorn-Pond, survivor of the Khmer Rouge genocide in Cambodia. Never Fall Down, named for one of the first things the captured boy learned to survive, travels the full arc of his experience, from the last days of normalcy before the Khmer Rouge takeover through the years of captivity, forced labor, and eventual conscription as a Khmer Rouge "soldier" when the Vietnamese invaded.
And as was the case with Sold, this is a young adult book with some adult themes, in this case, violence, death, murder, and other atrocities. At times the descriptions get quite graphic. Adding to the effect is McCormick's decision to tell it as Arn himself would after he has learned but not mastered all the nuances of English. The contrast of this young, naive voice in broken English and the brutality it witnesses is stark, adding to the effect. Example:
We walk three day. One long line of kid, all in black, one black snake with five hundred eye. Very tire, my leg heavy like boulder, my mind think only of the next step, then one more step, just walking, no thinking, no caring. Some kid die on the way. They die walking. Some kid cry for their parent or say they tire, they hungry. They get shot or maybe stab with the bayonet. Now we don't even look. We only walk.
In its way, Never Fall Down reminded me of Elie Wiesel's Night, where we start with a healthy, happy boy, and end with a shadow, physically and mentally. It would make a perfect companion read, in fact. It is short, easy to read, and wise in its straightforward style of narration. McCormick lets the horror speak for itself. And, as was the case with the young Wiesel in 1943 Hungary, Arn faces choiceless choices in his bid to survive, to someday reunite with his family. He uses considerable guile around adults and learns how to make himself valuable through his musical ability. Still, Death is at his elbow most every page of the book, and the motives of various Khmer Rouge soldiers are always suspect, lending the book a sustained sense of horror and suspense.
As you might expect, happy endings are hard to come by for people who go through such trauma. Arn is no exception. Author McCormick spent countless hours interviewing not only Chorn-Pond but surviving family members, his American adoptive family members, and even former members of the Khmer Rouge he interacted with. Many of these people now live in a northern enclave of Cambodia, and McCormick and Chorn-Pond flew together to meet the most important one for what must have been a memorable reunion and interview to make this book as accurate as possible.
"I asked Arn difficult, probing questions about his actions," McCormick writes in the Author's Note, " -- the heroic and the horrific. I verified, as much as possible, the truth of his story. Then I wrote his story as a novel. Like all survivors, Arn can recall certain experiences in chilling detail; others he can tell only in vague generalities... So I added to his recollections with my own research -- and my own imagination -- to fill in the missing pieces. The truth, I believe, is right there between the lines."
It's a sobering truth, too -- one that once again reminds us there are no depths to which man is incapable of sinking. -
The rich, they chase you if you steal their thiNgs. Poor people, they the one who share.
All the old clothes, our old lifE, one big pile, is on fire now. And gone.
"To live with nothing in your stomach and a gun in your face, is that liVing or is that dying a little bit every day?"
Be like the grass. BEnd low, bend low, then bend lower. The wind blow one way, you blow that way.
But now the Khmer Rouge, they win. They kill [my] family in my mind.
Death is just my daily liFe now.
I let him die. Because now I'm A ghost myself.
...to cover the sound of the kiLLing, but you hear it anyhow. Sickening sound. Skull cracking. You hear it every day. Death is every day.
One day you are comraDe. The next day corpse.
You not living. And you nOt dead. You living dead.
Why? Why I'm so bad? He didn't do anything to me. But I need to survive. I need to eat. Before, I kill human being, and now I kill this little animal. Why? Because every minute I have to think about surviving. Every minute.
But now my life can be something different. Now, in America, I don't have to fight. I don't have to survive. I can chose a new thing: to live
Even if I want to die. I can't.
Survive. That the only thing I can do. -
This story was heart breaking. It is based on a true story of a little boy who managed to survive the 1970's genocide in Cambodia, many members of his family were not so lucky. He learned harsh life lessons and used that knowledge to get him through some horrific trials.
The author is a journalist. I thought that telling this story from the POV of a child was brilliant, even though it took me a bit of time to get used to the choppy pigeon English. My thought is that maybe the pigeon English wasn't necessary. This still could have been told through the eyes of a child without that. The child POV was still brilliant though because it masked some of the horror he had to live. Well maybe not 'masked' because it was plain to see that these events were truly horrific, but maybe the word 'cushioned' might be more accurate. As painful as this was, it was worth the read. -
یه کتاب ترسناک دیگه که یادمون میندازه پادآرمانشهرها چقدر نزدیک و واقعی هستن. کتابی که بهمون میگه رژیم های افراطی چطور زندگی ساده آدمها رو تبدیل به یه جهنم بی پایان میکنه. چیزی که در طول کتاب به صورت پیدا و پنهان مدام تکرار میشد این بود که یه دردهایی تو زندگی هست که هیچ وقت ساکت نمیشن، بعضی آدمها و ترسها و کابوسها هرگز تموم نمیشن و گذشته مثل یه سایه دنبال آدم میاد. راه تحمل رنج، پذیرششه. زخمت رو بپذیر و زندگی کن. زندگی کن. و یادت باشه: هرگز نیافت
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This is not a book I would choose for a favorite and yet I cannot not choose it...It is a book that is so powerful that it has touched my depths. It is written beautifully sharing a heartwrenching powerful story of a child's story in the killing fields. Read it
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Important!
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Can't say that this was an easy read due to the horrific subject matter but it was a quick read and hard to put down. It's quite hard to get used to, to start with, as it's written from a child's point of view and in pidgin English but the subject matter is extremely gruesome throughout. It's based on a true story of a survivor of what happened in Cambodia whom the author extensively interviewed so is like a mixture between fact and fiction. Very glad that I have read it despite the unsettling subject matter and it is a good introduction to it - planning to read some more books on this subject (Khmer Rouge/Cambodia/Killing Fields).
Thanks very much to my Goodreads friend Kathie for putting me on to this one and lending me her copy ! -
McCormick writes a novelized version of Arn Chorn-Pond, who defied the odds to survive the Cambodian genocide of 1975-1979 and the labor camps of the Khmer Rouge. Somehow Arn manages to ingratiate himself with others, first through music and then through volleyball. The story is heart-wrenching and very brutal/violent: life was cheap in Southeast Asia in the mid-1970s. I did not really like the pidgin English used either.
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The usual questions driving personal reviews--did you like this book; what did you like/not like about it; why did or didn't you--must, I feel, be dispensed with in this case. There are two questions I do feel are worth asking:
First, is the book worthwhile of its topic?
And the answer of course is yes. To explain the question, however, let me say that I hesitated to begin reading this, confused and not sure exactly how the book would unfold--was it fiction or non-fiction? Why was it written by an American journalist rather than by the person who experienced it? And then, would it feel like another American Journalist Writing About Atrocities In Other Countries story? Etc.
But put those concerns aside, if you share them. Told in first person and only a "novel" in the sense that artistic liberties are taken for the sake of forming a coherent narrative from the childhood memories of Arn Chorn-Pond, it is an absorbing story, and makes an important contribution as a book for understanding.
P.S. The "Author's Note" is placed at the end of the book but it's worth your time to read it first, to understand both the voice McCormick chose to use, and the blurry line between fact and fiction for this story.
Second, is this book really for kids?
Truly, I don't know. Usually the age of the protagonist is a pretty good gauge for the age of the intended reader, and the book begins with Arn at eleven years old, and ends with him at fifteen. Reading it as an adult with complete awareness that everything going on in the book really happened, I had a hard time processing the sheer scale of suffering. And my immediate reaction is to say that kids shouldn't have to go through that. On the other hand, it seems practically unjust to say so, when Arn Chorn-Pond and so many children in Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge lived through it as children. But in the end I don't think that kids should be the ones to pay for the cruelty of adults. So: While I would certainly not take it away from a middle-grade reader mature enough to want to read it in the first place, I would recommend recommending it to high school-age and up.
What made me pick it up?
It was a much-lauded, starred-review new book last year.
I also heard Arn's story on
NPR a while back, although I didn't make the connection until after I checked it out from the library.
Overall recommendation: Highly recommended -
"As a child, I never imagined good people in the world. . ."
In 1979, fourteen-year old, Arn Chorn-Pond, wandered into a United Nations camp on the border of Thailand. He was adopted by a minister. A year later, Arn Chorn, now Arn Chorn-Pond was a New Hampshire high school student.
In Patricia McCormick's newest release, we read about Arn Chorn-Pond's experiences as an eleven-year-old in "The Killing Fields." Forced by Khmer Rouge soldiers to play their revolution songs, Arn must learn not only to play an instrument himself but he must help the other boys to learn to play theirs. Only later will Arn realize the horrifying truth of why he asked to play continually through the day.
The book is as raw and brutal as the experiences of its main character. Look for descriptions and depictions of violence and torture. NEVER FALL DOWN should be part of a reader advisory conversation with students, but this does not exclude the book from classroom discussions that might be best suited for U. S. History or International Relations courses.
McCormick pulls no punches by allowing Arn Chorn-Pond to share his story--which he had done with audiences since 1979--with a voice that will not soon be forgotten by readers.
Patricia McCormick sits down with Arn Chorn-Pond in this video created and posted by Harper Teen:
http://youtu.be/L-A_Y1kjJww
Arn Chorn-Pond "Everyone Has a Story" (ten minutes):
http://youtu.be/9uHeCzSM_PI
Arn Chorn-Pond has been awarded many humanitarian awards to include the Spirit of Anne Frank Award and the Reebok Human Rights Award. He speaks at high schools to share his story with young people encouraging them to think about their roles as world citizens.
I am so pleased that my friends at Harper Collins thought that I should see this book a little early and I thank our friends there for having sent this title. -
Review by Shelly
I have to say that I do not know a lot about Cambodia and the war that went on there so was fully engrossed from page one. The book is written as Arn and takes on his speech patterns and language which did take me awhile to get used to but once I did it was like he was speaking to you through the pages and you went on his journey with him. And what a journey it was. Sometimes it was brutal and was very hard to read especially when it focussed on the children and how they were tortured. I enjoyed, if that is the right word, the relationships he formed with people he met especially his music teacher and one of the Khmer Rouge soldiers who, in their own way help him to survive and show that even in the toughest surroundings you can form relationships.
It is hard to get your head around the fact that this is a true story and quite remarkable that Arn and others like him actually managed to stay alive. It was a draining read but one I would highly recommend especially for those who are learning this period of history in school. -
I could have probably finished this in one sitting. However the story and the horrifying aspects of the crimes comitted by the Khmer Rouge made me stop reading once in a while. I just wanted to put the book down now and then and think about what this must have meant for the people who had to live under this "rulership". What did it mean for the children, the mums, the rich, the poor, even the people who were part of this movement?
It is highly disturbing and yet so important to read about it. I am really disappointed that we didn't cover this when I was in High School because I talked about it with my parents and they both learned about this dark episode in world history. We often talk about WWII, about the Holocaust or about the civil rights movement. But this is about a country slaughtering its own people!
It was beautiful and cruel at the same time to read about these events from the perspective of a little child. It was put into such simple words, yet sometimes they carried such deep wisdom.
This is such an important read and I'm recommending it to EVERYONE!! -
4 stars. This is one of the most impactful memoirs I’ve ever read.
Never Fall Down chronicles the true story of Arn Chorn-Pond, a survivor of the communist revolution in Cambodia. This revolution led to the deaths of around 1/4 Cambodia’s population, a higher proportion of the population than almost any other genocide.
In terms of emotional impact, the book hits hard. We see the journey from relative peace to constant violence firsthand here, and it’s just as shocking as you’d expect.
The writing style is a bit clinical, which sometimes works and sometimes doesn't. In one way, the clinical tone makes events hit harder. However, the narrative occasionally feels detached during incredibly horrific events. This style is completely understandable; I can’t imagine going through the kind of trauma Chorn-Pond went through and surviving. But the unemotional tone stays around for the entire book, and it’s almost tiring.
Highly recommended. -
One day, Arn is a street-wise child - catching frogs, gambling a little, and sneaking into movies in his city in Cambodia. Then, the Khmer Rouge took control of the country, forced Arn and all the citizens into work camps. His life became defined by starvation, endless labor, and death. Arn spent four years in the heart of what became known as The Killing Fields, surviving partly because of his skill as a musician and partly because he told himself just never fall down.
Because it is told wholly in the voice of the child, this story unfolds with no context. There is no explanation of the politics or background. It is simply a litany of one child's brutal experience, drawing the reader into the horror and confusion of the events.
The result is both stunning and devastating. -
(2.5) This striking novel about the Killing Fields of Cambodia is based on the true story of Arn Chorn-Pond, who was abducted and forced into life as a child soldier. I can see this being an eye-opening read for mature adolescents, but the simplistic style and annoying pidgin English (e.g. “You show you care, you die. You show fear, you die. You show nothing, maybe you live”) caused me to lose interest about a quarter of the way through. I think I would prefer a non-fiction account; indeed, it is a pity McCormick did not work with Chorn-Pond to write his memoirs instead.
My thanks to Goodreads First Reads and Random House for the giveaway copy. -
This book is actually so good. The narrator tells it as if it were his own mind. Thus, the entirety of the book is written in broken English. While reading this book, I found myself chuckling at the comedic scenarios the narrator would describe. Whether it’s putting rocks in his napping friends mouth or talking about other children’s diarrhea, I always laughed at the randomness of the novel. The author manages to portray a serious topic and plot whilst adding little bits of comedy, making the book much more enjoyable.
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I dont know much about Cambodia, and the style of writing put me off to begin with. However now that I can reflect on this book, it is a good basic knowledge of what it would have been like in the late 1970s in Cambodia. There is violence and death but it is written from the point of view of a child, so the description is quite factual and not grotesque.
I want sure how this novel would conclude, but it was dealt with very well. -
Written in the voice of teenage survivor of the Cambodian genocide , this is a brutal but historical informative book . Although McCormick is considered the author of this 'novel' , it reads more like a long series of interviews with the survivor .
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loved it from start to finish, an amazing comfort read but still contains many places to take notes and dig deeper.
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This is an emotional memoir that follows Arn Chorn-Pond as a child in Cambodia during 1975-1979. An emotionally gripping story from beginning to end as Patricia McCormick used first person narrative with broken English which kept Arn’s voice alive! This story is not for the faint hearted as it recounts the historical events of the Cambodian genocide patrolled by the Khmer Rouge- an army of men in black pyjamas with more guns and amo than there were people.
Arn was an average child who enjoyed games, movies and music. Arn was from a poor family so he use to skip school at the temple to gamble with old men for their money just to eat and have fun. Although, some time earlier in his life his family had money because they use to own a theatre until his parents left. So he and his siblings were raised by their Aunt who did what she could to provide for them.
One day the Khmer Rouge ordered all soldiers to meet the Prince and Princess, that evening they were marched out of town never to return. Over the next few days people fled from town to move somewhere safer, until the whole town was rounded up and prodded towards the death march to where they would find the “Killing Fields.” The Khmer Rouge winged out mostly anyone who was rich, educated, old, unhealthy, as well as any soldiers who lied initially and didn’t leave town in the mass that were murdered by the Khmer Rouge that evening. Everyone got separated by age and gender and distributed among the fields.
Over the next few years we see Arn grow from a child to a teenager where he is faced with many challenges- hunger, thirst, mental abuse, physical abuse, hot weather, disease.. Arn Chorn- Pond defied the odds of death and survived. He obtained an important role to serve the Khmer Rouge by playing music, learned by an old music teacher, which was played through speakers while people were being killed and thrown into pits to rot. He became a messenger boy delivering messages between camps. Then one day he was handed a gun and forced to become a boy soldier, for a short time, until he escaped to the jungle and survived for many months by himself until he found Thailand where he sought refuge and was eventually adopted by an American man (Peter L. Pond).
A beautiful story that told the raw experience of Arn Chorn- Pond, a child of war, survival and heroism. Arn is still surviving now as a musician and human rights activist. -
My Review:
Arn Chorn-Pond is only 11 years old. In his town of Battambang, Cambodia the people come out at night and make music. Music is everywhere. Rich people and poor people alike congregate together and play radios, record players and eight-track cassettes. In Arn’s town, “music is like air, always there.” The men and ladies stroll through the park to catch the newest songs. Men play cards while ladies sell mangoes, noodles, wristwatches and other wares. Kids fly kites and eat ice cream, it’s a happy place.
Arn and his little brother, Munny like to dance for pleasure and to entertain the neighbours. They loved to do “the twist”. They also like to watch the movies in the cinema but don’t have the money to pay so they find a rather stout woman, stand beside her and get in for free. If kids are with a parent they get in at no charge.
After the show which had lots of shooting, they played outside mimicking what they saw on the big screen. Suddenly they hear a whistle and the sky far away flashes white. The palm trees shiver, the ground shakes and they suddenly realize the war is “real.” They run to the pond near their home, jump in, water up to their noses and hide there. The following day the music is back and the war is gone, it had come close but not into their town.
Arn’s father was killed in a motorcycle accident and his mother was forced to go to Phnom Penh for work so the children lived with their aunt – Arn, his brother, Munny and four sisters; Sophea, Chantou, Maly, and Jorami. Their aunt had no children so she loved them as if they were her own.
One morning the Khmer Rouge arrive in Cambodia with bullhorns riding in trucks telling people that the Americans are coming to bomb the city and everyone, the entire country must leave, evacuate immediately but will be allowed to return home in 3 days. They are told to walk 12 miles into the countryside. The entire population of Cambodia is leaving in droves, each carrying something – bags of rice, blankets, food, dried fish and other items. All of Cambodia is now on the road walking into the countryside. A hundred thousand people.
While walking, a kid who knows Arn yells from behind for him to wait up. He tells Arn that his father is a high ranking official and had gone to the airport with the Khmer Rouge. He said his big brother was hiding in the bush and watched the Khmer Rouge shoot his father to death. He says the Khmer Rouge is going to kill them all. Arn witnesses a man asking the Khmer Rouge for a drink of water for his pregnant wife, but he only grunts and points his gun for the man to keep moving forward. The man opened his mouth to say something else but the Khmer Rouge hit the man in the cheek with his gun. Arn learned right then to “be invisible around these Khmer Rouge guys.” As Arn continues to walk he sees various people along the road with bullet holes and others with blood coming out of their mouths and others with shirts full of blood. Arn thought: “in one day a person can get used to seeing a dead body.”
Finally, many miles into the countryside, the Khmer Rouge tell 1,000 people to stop and make camp. The rest keep walking until they reach another field where another 1,000 people are told to make camp. The Khmer Rouge had promised they could return to their homes in 3 days but it’s now already been one week.
The Khmer Rouge forced everyone to dig ditches in the hot blazing sun all day and the only break they get is when they use the latrine. Arn discovers a huge hole in the ground while taking his little brother to the latrine. The smell emanating from the hole is horrendous and unlike anything he has ever smelled before. Arn soon figures out that the Khmer Rouge are killing all the rich people, those who are well-educated with good jobs, soldiers, doctors, and musicians. It appears if you’re poor, they leave you alone. Arn discovers the list in a black book, that’s how they decide who lives and who dies.
One day the Khmer Rouge forced everyone to strip naked and then gave them a pair of black pajamas to wear. Now all women, men, and children are dressed the same. They burned all their other clothing. The Khmer Rouge tell the people: “now all of us live as equals, no rich, no poor.” They are told that now everything belongs to “Angka”. Each day they are woken at 4:00AM and forced to work in the rice paddies under the blazing hot sun until dark then given a dinner of rice soup and salt.
The atrocities that these people faced was horrible and hard to believe that people, human beings, could be so very cruel. Never Fall Down is a difficult book to read but a necessary book to read. I think everyone needs to read this true story to understand the magnitude of destruction of human life the Khmer Rouge forced upon the people of Cambodia. Patricia McCormick has told Arn Chorn-Pond’s story well and my hat goes off to Arn for having the stamina, courage and fortitude to change from being a killing machine to a man of peace. An excellent piece of work! -
A | No words. It’ll take me a bit to process this novel.
