A painful to read, fictionalized account of the true story of Arn Chorn-Pond and his time spent in a work-camp during the Khmer Rouge reign of terror in Cambodia. Chorn-Pond was only eleven years old when his family was torn apart, forced to work almost twenty-four hours a day in the rice paddy fields while constantly surrounded by both the threat and presence of death. In order to survive, Chorn-Pond uses his skills as a musician to play music in a Khmer Rouge band. Slowly, Chorn-Pond realizes he is becoming less like the innocents and more like the enemy. Patricia McCormick tells Chorn-Pond's story in his voice, a choice that makes this tragedy all the more real for the reader. This is an impossible-to-put-down book, one that will elicit great emotion from the reader. "Never Fall Down" is heartbreaking in it's truth and terrifying in it's honesty, but it's a story that needed to be told.