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Never Fall Down

4.23 of 5 stars 4.23 · rating details · 1,665 ratings · 462 reviews

When soldiers arrive at his hometown in Cambodia, Arn is just a kid, dancing to rock 'n' roll, hustling for spare change, and selling ice cream with his brother. 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,...more

Hardcover, 216 pages

Published May 8th 2012 by Balzer + Bray

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Mock Printz 2013

42nd out of 75 books — 274 voters

Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret by Judy Blume

Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? by Philip K. Dick

We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson

Everything That Rises Must Converge by Flannery O'Connor

Titlemania III: Whole-Sentence Titles

74th out of 556 books — 54 voters

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Jan 19, 2013 jo rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: kids, east-asia, blew-my-mind

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...more 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. (less)

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Nov 23, 2012 Newengland rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: finished-in-2012, ya

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, force...more 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.

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Jan 11, 2013 Erica - Bonner Springs Library rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: mock-award-reading, 2012, war, ya, award-honor-finalist

There are books that are difficult to read because of violence, killing or something else but you can't stop reading because you want to make sure someone is okay. I experienced it with A Long Way Gone by Ishmael Beah and I experienced it again with this book.

Arn's family is torn apart when the Khmer Rouge soldiers arrive in his village. Sent to a work camp he does everything he can to keep himself and others alive. He is recruited to play in an instrument when he's never played a note in his l...more

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May 08, 2013 Michelle rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: 2013, 60s-70s-80s, contemporary-fiction

Patricia McCormick is a journalist who wrote this novelization of the life of Cambodian refugee Arn Chorn-Pond. Though the book itself is relatively short it spans the time from when the Khmer Rouge first came to power all the way to Arn’s adulthood. The postscript is interesting, particularly as she addresses the extent to which the book is fiction versus non-fiction. An interesting approach to be sure.

The writing style is hard to get used to. She wrote it in Arn’s voice and reads such as: “he...more

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Mar 27, 2013 Donna Finke rated it 4 of 5 stars

YA Arn-Chorn Pond - child soldier - real life hero - age 11 taken by the KHMER ROUGE a radical Communist regime in Cambodia. Killing Fields = families were seperated...Tens of thousands died from starvation, overwork and sickness digging ditches and growing rice...killed and buried in mass graves. Nearly two million people died ...1/4 of the population...genocide on its own people.
Parents = opera(die)Aunty (died in US after uniting with Arn), Chantou = oldest sister (dies), Maly (found her in Ph...more

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Feb 24, 2013 Connie Peters rated it 4 of 5 stars

You can trust Patricia McCormick to thoroughly research a subject and get it right. Never Fall Down is an amazing story of cruelty, inhumanity and survival. Having grown up during the era of the Viet Nam War and the genocide in Cambodia, it was familiar territory for me, but this historical fiction novel told the story in real terms.

My Booktalk:

Arn is 11 years old and lives large village in Cambodia with his family. They are quite rich and famous in their town as they own and operate an opera. B...more

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Feb 19, 2013 Emily rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2013-reading-challenges, historical-fiction, ya-fiction, yalsa-challenge-2013, jessica-s-scavnger-hunt-2013

Why I picked it up: on the list for the 2013 YALSA reading challenge

When Arn Chorn-Pond was eleven, the Khmer Rouge, a radical Communist regime, came to power in Cambodia, herding the entire population to work camps in the countryside. Families were separated and everyone, including children, was forced to work long, grueling house digging ditches and growing rice. (Summary from first page of book.) Arn Chorn-Pond is a real person; this book is a fictionalized look at the four years of his life...more

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Feb 18, 2013 BAYA Librarian rated it 5 of 5 stars

Arn is 11 years old in a small town in Cambodia in 1975 when the Khmer Rouge soldiers arrive and his world changes. This is the story of the next four years of his life- being taken to a re-education/farming camp, the murders and atrocities that happened around him, trying to survive, and ultimately being forced to become a soldier for the Khmer Rouge in their retreat. He finally escapes to a refugee camp in Thailand, where an American adopts him and two other Cambodian boys and takes them back...more Arn is 11 years old in a small town in Cambodia in 1975 when the Khmer Rouge soldiers arrive and his world changes. This is the story of the next four years of his life- being taken to a re-education/farming camp, the murders and atrocities that happened around him, trying to survive, and ultimately being forced to become a soldier for the Khmer Rouge in their retreat. He finally escapes to a refugee camp in Thailand, where an American adopts him and two other Cambodian boys and takes them back to the United States.

McCormick wrote this biographical novel with Arn Chorn-Pool (the Pool family adopted him and brought him to the US.) She interviewed everyone who was in the book and still alive that she could, and went to Cambodia with him to see all of the places he had been. Her background as a journalist shows: this is a factual recitation, and even though Arn’s feelings are obvious, the quiet statement of what he sees and does shows better than any hyperbole how he had to distance himself from the horrors he saw and was a part of.

This is not a book for young students, no matter how interested; by the middle of the book, rape, murder and torture are commonplace, and Arn is forced to hurt and kill people just to survive. His comprehension and viewpoint are believeably that of a young teen, though, so the descriptions are not as graphic as they might be. Even so, this is not a book for younger teens.

McCormick has chosen to write in the voice of a non-native English speaker. The story is told almost completely in present tense, even for some past events (but this is easy for readers to understand) and, like many native speakers of Cambodian, the narrator leaves off final consonants, like the ‘s’ at the end of plural nouns. McCormick addresses this editorial choice in an afterword, saying that she wished to accurately capture Arn’s voice and make the story sound more personal, and once the reader gets used to the fact that the whole story is told this way, it works.

I was hesitant to read it (oh, another teenager in a war-torn land, and this one is forty years out of date) but was almost immediately caught up in it, and in fact couldn’t put it down. The writing, the voice, the events combine to bring the reader along in an overwhelming and unforgettable story. An excellent choice for older teens and high school libraries.

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Feb 18, 2013 Loo rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: eng-356-books-1-12

Arn, a young boy in Cambodia, finds the innocence of his childhood ripped from him in the abrupt invasion of the Khmer Rouge. He is taken from his family, forced to assist in killings, burials, and abuse, and eventually finds himself volunteering to be in the armed forces of the Khmer Rouge itself. Arn's struggle for survival is incredible, as he rises to the top of every situation through sheer talent and guts. However, he is faced with a terrible question in the end: Who am I? The good guy or...more

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Feb 14, 2013 Wandering Librarians rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: boy-appeal, family, fiction, friendship, historical-fiction, middle-grade, realistic-fiction, serious-issues, war

Arn is young when the Khmer Rouge comes to power in Cambodia. Along with his family and all the residents of his city, he is forced out to the countryside, separated from everyone he knows, and sent to work in the rice fields. All around him Arn watches as people begin to starve. When the children are asked if anyone knows how to play an instrument, Arn says he can, even though he's never played anything before. Perhaps this will be they way that he can survive.

I'd never read any fiction about C...more Arn is young when the Khmer Rouge comes to power in Cambodia. Along with his family and all the residents of his city, he is forced out to the countryside, separated from everyone he knows, and sent to work in the rice fields. All around him Arn watches as people begin to starve. When the children are asked if anyone knows how to play an instrument, Arn says he can, even though he's never played anything before. Perhaps this will be they way that he can survive.

I'd never read any fiction about Cambodia and the Khmer Rouge, and now within a year I've read two excellent ones. Much like In the Shadow of the Banyan by Vaddey Ratner, Never Fall Down is a novel that is based on a true story. Patricia McCormick worked closely with Arn Chorn-Pond to tell his story. But just as Ratner felt, Chorn-Pond thought there were too many holes in his childhood memories to write a memoir.

Arn is not well off when the story begins, he and his brother beg for food on the street, but they used to be rich. Arn has to make sure that no one ever finds this out, because rich people, academics, royals, government soldiers, all were systematically killed by the Khmer Rouge.

Arn's survival instincts were strong. He was going to do whatever he needed to do in order to get by. Children are starving to death around him, and Arn witnesses, again and again, people being killed for seemingly no reason. He's so hungry he's eating bugs and dirt. Volunteering to be part of the Khmer Rouge band was a crap shoot. Sometimes the soldiers will ask things like, "Who can read?" because they want to kill those people. But becoming part of the band probably saved Arn's life. As he put it, he became "a little bit famous" and this afforded him some protection because he was in the Khmer Rouge soldiers' good graces.

Arn is able to form a little family of people he cares about made up of his band leader and some of the other kids in the band. He has no idea what happened to his actual family. He assumes they are all dead. When Cambodia is invaded by the Vietnamese, young children, including Arn, are recruited into the army. The children are then used as bait to lure opposing soldiers out.

Arn is able to make it into Thailand, where he is placed in a refugee camp with other children. Now he is afraid that other people will find out that he fought for the Khmer Rouge. An American takes interest him and brings him to America, and Arn must deal with the incredible culture shock.

It's a difficult but amazing story to read. Arn had to do some terrible things to survive. Were they justified because of the horrifying situation he was in?

Be aware that the book contains descriptions of the dead and dying. Arn talks about the rotting smell that comes from a large mound of earth that keeps growing, and realizing what it is. It will be a difficult and emotional read for some middle school students.(less)

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Jan 25, 2013 Warnie B. rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: read-in-2013, young-adult, historical-fiction, war, southeast-asia, faves-from-2012, biography-autobiography-memoir, around-the-world-in-52-books-2013

Really powerful and horrifying book. I read Chanrithy Him's When Broken Glass Floats: Growing Up Under the Khmer Rouge a couple years ago, so I had an idea of what to expect from this book, but the knowing didn't make the reading any easier. Though at first I had a little trouble with the dialect, I quickly got used to it, and for the most part, it stayed consistent enough that I completely forgot about it in the midst of Arn's story. I think Patricia McCormick has done a fantastic job of transl...more

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Jan 23, 2013 Halkovic's-Classroom rated it 4 of 5 stars

Arn had a good life in his hometown in Cambodia, dancing to rock’n’roll, gambling for spare change, and selling ice cream. But when soldiers come to his town and take him and his family away, his life will be changed forever and he will live the life of a slave. Arn has to have “good character” which is the key to surviving. Every day, about 23 hours a day working in the rice fields and only 30 minutes to sleep and 30 minutes to eat thing rice soup. He is forced to do things like learn and instr...more

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Jan 15, 2013 Whitney rated it 5 of 5 stars

Intense and eye-opening.

Have you ever read a book that was hard to read? Not because of the long words or complex sentences, but because of what it was about? This was one of those. It's based on the true story of Arn Chorn-Pond, a young boy during the genocide in Cambodia. At the hands of the Khmer Rouge, Arn is forced away from his home, separated from his family, starved, worked almost to death, made a child-soldier and forced to do many other horrific things. This book shows a raw, close-up...more Intense and eye-opening.

Have you ever read a book that was hard to read? Not because of the long words or complex sentences, but because of what it was about? This was one of those. It's based on the true story of Arn Chorn-Pond, a young boy during the genocide in Cambodia. At the hands of the Khmer Rouge, Arn is forced away from his home, separated from his family, starved, worked almost to death, made a child-soldier and forced to do many other horrific things. This book shows a raw, close-up look at the horrors of the killing fields and of war through the eyes of a young boy-- and those are not easy, light-hearted things--so trust me when I say that this book is intense. And eye opening.

But don't you think that it's good to read hard topics sometimes? I know that I feel incredibly grateful for what I have after reading this. I feel that, even though it was hard for me to even read the terrible things that Arn went through--so hard sometimes I had to put the book down and shake my head for a second before I could continue--I feel that it was a valuable experience for me. I believe that the power of the writing that opens your eyes and makes you hurt and maybe even cry or get angry at the injustice of it all is worth it. In this book that power came from the voice of the main character, which was written to resemble the way a person talks when they're learning English- so some bad grammar and almost no use of plurals--and that was what did the trick. Arn's voice comes in through the writing and makes the experiences have that much more impact on the reader.

While I think that everyone should read eye-opening books every so often, I think that Never Fall Down would be a great one for guy readers. The perspective of Arn makes it more relatable and the subject matter makes it incredibly interesting. The story flow is also quite fast (but not too fast), and so it's easy to get into.

And I love how the theme of Never Fall Down was repeated throughout. You can't help but be incredibly impressed by Arn, his unfailing spirit and generosity.

-www.enjoyabookblog.com (less)

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Jan 06, 2013 Suzanne rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: peach-consideration

One of the most amazing things about this book is the voice for Arn Chorn-Pond created by Patricia McCormick. The accent as she writes it rings so true; the vocabulary sounds realistic for an English language learner; and the blending of his biographical recollections from interviews with her and the story that she weaves from that with her research so seamlessly incorporated is heartrending.

Arn learns early in the Khmer Rouge coup that falling down equates to death, so he does whatever it takes...more

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Dec 30, 2012 Mac Crawford rated it 4 of 5 stars

This book "Never Fall Down" by Patricia McCormick is a story is about a Cambodian boy named Arn who is forced into a labor camp by the Khmer Rouge. He has to adapt to the ways of life and death that go on at the camp, in order to survive. Whenever he is given a chance to impress the Khmer Rouge (or finds a new risky way to survive)he takes it. This is the way he survives until the Khmer Rouge put a gun in his hand and tell him to fight. When he is fighting, he sees some of the most grueling thi...more

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Dec 29, 2012 MacK rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: young-adult, world-lit, non-fiction, chapter-and-verse

Sometimes there's almost too much to think about. In the case of Patricia McCormick's Never Fall Down, the reader is thrust into thoughts about life among the killing fields of Cambodia. Based on the life of real ex-Khmer Rouge soldier Arn Chorn-Pond, Never Fall Down takes a typical teenage boy and unceremoniously shoves him into a dark and dangerous place.

Arn's reaction is truly existential: striving to live first and find meaning later. As the country changes with each eye blink and page turn,...more

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Dec 25, 2012 Lilian Cheng rated it 5 of 5 stars

I'm surprised Never Fall Down hasn't received much attention despite being a National Book Award finalist. I suspect it's because of it's categorization as a young-adult historical/non-fiction that just doesn't sound as appealing against the host of dystopians cropping up lately. But Never Fall Down is a dystopian of its own, complete with information suppression, ruthless tyranny, moral ambiguities, twisted ideals, and a young hero's desperate fight to survive another day. Despite being a mere...more I'm surprised Never Fall Down hasn't received much attention despite being a National Book Award finalist. I suspect it's because of it's categorization as a young-adult historical/non-fiction that just doesn't sound as appealing against the host of dystopians cropping up lately. But Never Fall Down is a dystopian of its own, complete with information suppression, ruthless tyranny, moral ambiguities, twisted ideals, and a young hero's desperate fight to survive another day. Despite being a mere two hundred pages Never Fall Down is easily much more frightening than any dystopian you'll ever read because these horrifying events are real. Never Fall Down will terrify you, but its grit will pick you back up and leave you with a tear-stained cheek.

Arn, Redefining Badass (This Kid Really Knows How To Survive)
Arn's strength is soul of the entire book. How he adapts to his circumstances to survive while other kids are either sabotaging their peers or waiting to die is nothing short of incredible. He witnesses the ugliness of humanity, yet still retains a modicum of sympathy. Despite being hungry, he hides food to feed his friends (And also as a bribe.) Despite all the killing he witnesses (and is responsible for,) we also see him conflicted over his morality, asking himself why he is evil.

Gore, More Blood Than A Horror Novel:
There were some very graphic passages (cannibalism, prisoners having their livers cut out, etc.) that I felted tested the limits of Young Adult literature. Going into this book, I expected something milder, along the lines of Lois Lowry's Number the Stars, where genocide was only hinted at and never described in excruciating detail, but Never Fall Down opts for the realistic, unedited route. I fully agree with Never Fall Down's 14+ age categorization, for it is even bloodier than an your average adult horror novel.

Writing (Arn's Accent):
I realize that I'm usually impatient with accents in young adult literature (The Knife of Never Letting Go and Blood Red Road,) but it worked in Never Fall Down. The lack of plurals and clumsy grammar was convincing in letting Arn's voice shine through. I smiled when I read some passages out loud, which reminded me of the Filipino accents (although Arn is Cambodian) so common here in Hawaii.

Pacing:
My own gripe with this novel was the pacing. There were moments where I didn't know where the story was heading (especially after his escape to Thailand) and the book dragged as one horrifying experience after another.

Overall, a powerful, inspiring, and heart-wrenchingly raw novel that I won't forget anytime soon. I know I am guilty of straying away from painful, gritty real-world topics such as war, but sometimes these are the books I need to remind me that I'm fortunate to be literate, and not forced to plant rice on a empty stomach twenty hours a day while people around me are brutally murdered (and not even with a gun, because that would be "wasting bullets".) I urge you not to be intimidated and join Arn's journey.
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Dec 18, 2012 Sandy rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: library, ya

A powerful and unforgettable true story about the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia. The story centers on Arn Chorn-Pond who is an 11 year-old, who is forced to work in labor camps digging ditches and growing rice. Resting for only a few hours a day, Arn’s personality changes quickly and he becomes numb to the world around him as he learns things to survive his new life. While others die around him, Arn becomes emotional detached and he slowly turns into a monster but only becomes he must become one to su...more

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Dec 06, 2012 Kelsey rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: 13-25

Eleven year old Arn and his family are told American's are going to bomb his city and that they may return in three days. Scared and slightly fascinated at the same time, Arn follows his family and the others from his town to wherever the soldiers are taking him. They soon realize it's a trap as they travel for days, hardly getting any answers in relation to where they are going. It isn't until they reach a prison camp where the massacre beings. Anyone with high social ranking or money is killed...more

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Dec 02, 2012 Barbara rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: abusive-relationships, bullies, community, cultural-identity, death, families, friendship, immigration, languages, literacy, ncbla2013, poverty, rural-life, school, teachers, travel, war

Patricia McCormick often tells the stories of individuals that would barely be noticed if it weren't for her books. In a sense, her books reveal the stories behind the headlines in today's newspapers. In the case of this book, she relies on a sort of created dialect to mimic the speaking patterns and thoughts of Arn Chorn-Pond, whom she interviewed over two years in order to tell his story. Arn was young, eleven or twelve, in 1975, when the Khmer Rouge took over Cambodia and forced most of its c...more

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Nov 24, 2012 Kim rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: read-2012, ebook

What an amazing and powerful book! It tells the story of Arn, an eleven year old boy at the time that he is separated from his family and forced to live in the labor camps of the Khmer Rouge. It's a harrowing story, one based on the life of human rights activist Arn Chorn-Pond. There is much to learn here to enrich anyone's life. It would make a great Common Reading book for a university or public library program too.

The fictional nature of the book is similar to Dave Eggers' What is the What in...more

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Nov 16, 2012 Allison rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: ya

Two words come to mind after finishing this book: important and horrifying. This book blew my mind. I knew next to nothing about the Khmer Rouge. McCormick shares a fictionalized version of Arn Chorn-Pond's experiences living in Cambodia when the Khmer Rouge took over, sending almost the entire population into work camps where death, torture, and killing were everyday occurrences. The narrator is a young (10 years old, i think) Arn who speaks imperfect English. His innocent voice tells the story...more

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Nov 05, 2012 Richie Partington rated it 5 of 5 stars

Richie’s Picks: NEVER FALL DOWN by Patricia McCormick, HarperCollins/Balzer+Bray, May 2012, 224p., ISBN: 978-0-06-173093-1

“With their hearts they turned to each other’s heart for refuge”
-- Jackson Browne, “Before the Deluge”

“The Khmer Rouge, they want the name, the background of everyone here. But the Khmer Rouge themself, they all the same. All black uniform. All grim face. All name ‘Comrade.’ Comrade Soldier. Comrade Elder. Comrade Cook.
“In my mind, I give them names. The one who steal is Com...more

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Oct 28, 2012 Louise rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: non-fiction

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’...more 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!

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Oct 14, 2012 Wendy rated it 4 of 5 stars

Extraordinarily gutting. It's graphic and violent, of course, but the emotional turmoil and fear is far more disturbing as the book yanks the reader back and forth between moments of heroism and moments of evil; between very occasional moments of small beauty or happiness and moments of stark horror. I think a chapter just pages from the end was the most horrifying of all for me (the one right before he runs away from his family). My heart also broke for Arn in the situation with the kitchen mai...more

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Oct 08, 2012 Marj rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: non-fiction, favorites, young-adult

What sort of book do you pick up at an airport bookshop?

Fortunately for me, in Siem Reap, Cambodia, I picked up 'Never fall Down' by Patricia McCormick, the story of Arn Chorn-Pond, who today is a peace activist and motivational speaker. McCormick narrates Arn's story when, as a young Cambodian boy soldier, he is forced to leave his home, to witness horrifying events and make excruciatingly difficult decisions as he firstly flees from the Khmer Rouge, survives by learning to play a musical instr...more

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Oct 05, 2012 Sweet on Books rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: independent-reader-sr, melissa-g

Never Fall Down is a powerful and unforgettable story that reveals the unspeakable tragedies that occurred while the Khmer Rouge were in power in Cambodia. It is a story that needed to be told and now needs to be shared, so that people will never forget what happened and will continue to fight against the acts of injustice that still take place around the world today. According to Patricia McCormick, "Nearly two million people died - one quarter of the population. It is the worst genocide ever i...more Never Fall Down is a powerful and unforgettable story that reveals the unspeakable tragedies that occurred while the Khmer Rouge were in power in Cambodia. It is a story that needed to be told and now needs to be shared, so that people will never forget what happened and will continue to fight against the acts of injustice that still take place around the world today. According to Patricia McCormick, "Nearly two million people died - one quarter of the population. It is the worst genocide ever inflicted by a country on its own people." The facts are compelling, but as told through they eyes of Arn Chorn-Pond, this story is life changing.

Prior to 1975, Arn's life in his small Cambodian village is filled with music, movies and rock n' roll. Although he is not well-off and has his share of challenges, he is a happy and industrious 11-year-old boy. Everything changes, though, when the Khmer Rouge, a radical Communist regime, come into power.

The Khmer Rouge force the people of Arn's village to flee. Most, including Arn, his aunt and his siblings, begin the long walk to the countryside where the Khmer Rouge imprison them in work camps. Even on this initial walk, the devastation begins. Prized possessions are left in the road, food is scarce, the Khmer Rouge are ruthless and people begin to die. Arn says, "In just one day a person can get use to seeing dead body." The world is turned upside down for Arn. In this new world, Arn says, "Being rich now is no good. Being poor, this can save your life."

Arn quickly learns to live by the rules of the Khmer Rouge: Families are separated. Everyone is equal. There is no money. Food is limited. Everyone is called, Comrade. A black uniform is worn by all. No one can have their own possessions. Angka, the ruler of the Khmer Rouge, is their new family. Thinking too much is a disease. It is the Year Zero. All day long, the prisoners work in the rice fields, and at night they sit through indoctrination meetings.

Arn witnesses countless atrocities. People are literally starving to death. A girl sitting next to him dies at the table. Many are beaten to death, some with a small axe to the back of their heads. Arn sees people getting their insides sliced out with a bayonet and even a young boy chewing a human arm. The dead are tossed into growing dirt piles, some still partially alive. Arn is forced to push the dead into a ditch, to cook a human liver, to go along with the sexual advances of a young Khmer Rouge girl, and to play music to conceal the sound of all the killing. When the Vietnamese invade, Arn ends up fighting alongside the Khmer Rouge, committing some of the same violent acts that had only recently horrified him. Later, when Arn eventually makes his miraculous journey to the United States, he is faced with even more challenges as he confronts American bullies and tries to figure out the peculiarities of American culture.

How does Arn survive all this madness? Is he lucky? Is it because he seems to learn from each experience and adjust himself to each new situation? He figures out how to avoid the wrath of the Khmer Rouge by being invisible. He learns not to see and not to hear what is going on around him. He understands that "They fall down, they never get up. Over and over I tell my self one thing: never fall down." He hears his aunt's advice, "Be like the grass. Bend low, bend low, then bend lower. The wind blow one way, you blow that way. It blow the other way, you do, too. That is the way to survive." And, he discovers that being just a little bit "famous" can save his life - again and again.

His survival may also be the result of his ability to continue to find positives, to create new relationships and to care about others. He keeps that strength hidden ("You show nothing, maybe you live."), as he secretly shares his food, offers comfort to many, and even takes the blame for a few. He saves his music teacher, Mek's life, but understands the consequences of his actions. He says, "This guy, Mek, he decide to live because of what I say. Now, I know, it my job to keep him living." Patricia McCormick's telling of Arn's story not only highlights how far humans can stray from what is right, but it shows us that it is still possible for good to prevail.(less)

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Sep 14, 2012 Beth Dailey Kenneth rated it 4 of 5 stars

SUGGESTION: Read the Author's Note at the end prior to reading the book.

When the soldiers arrive at his Cambodian town, Arn is a kid dancing to rock-n-roll, hustling for money and selling ice cream to help feed his family. Then the Khmer Rouge soldiers marched the entire town into the counrtyside.

Arn is seperated from his family and assigned to a labor camp. There he must work in the rice fields under the blazing sun with a thin rice gruel as his food. Arn is a smart boy and uses his quick mind...more

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Sep 14, 2012 Book Angel Emma rated it 4 of 5 stars

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 tor...more

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Aug 17, 2012 bjneary rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: historical-fiction, multicultural-fiction, kindle, ya

Arn is a young teen who loves life in Cambodia with his sisters and brother until one day, the Khmer Rouge march into their village and change his life forever. In Arn's broken language, McCormick bases this work of fiction on the four and a half years Arn suffered as he witnesses the murder of friends and family. Toiling all day long in rice fields with young boys, boys were starved, murdered, and when marched to the mango field "everyone knew they would die" and everyone meant babies, men, wom...more

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About Patricia McCormick

Patricia McCormick is a journalist and writer. She graduated from Rosemont College in 1978, followed by an M.S. from Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism in 1986 and an M.F.A. from New School University in 1999. Her first novel for teens was Cut, about a young woman who self-injures herself. This was followed by My Brother's Keeper in 2005, about a boy struggling with his brother's ad...more

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Quotes from Never Fall Down

“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.” — 4 people liked it

“Back at the hut, all my sister, they start to cry. "No crying," my aunt says, very strict. "You cry only in your mind."

But later, when everyone else asleep, I hear my aunt, her tears, they fall like rain.” — 2 people liked it

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