Check this review out and others on my blog: Get Real.

This book was an intense page-turner and yet difficult to get through because of the subject matter. The dramatized story of Arn Chorn-Pond, a Cambodian boy forced into the life of a slave and then a child soldier under the Khmer Rouge regime. This is an understatement to say that this was a terrible, terrible time for humanity. Akin to the Holocaust, Arn is separated from his family, forced to kill others to survive and then armed by the Khmer Rouge in the final days of the regime. This book is probably best suited to eighth grade and up, though adults will find this material difficult to digest as well. Arn lived right in the middle of what came to be known as the Killing Fields - people were buried alive, had their organs cut out before their own eyes and executed en masse because of their perceived association with the old government.

I'm a bit speechless about this book. Arn is adopted by Americans, but his troubles don't end there. Americans remained suspicious of him, and he is plagued by nightmares of what he endured. He was nearly worked to death, but somehow managed to survived through luck and his own ingenuity. He becomes a member of a nationalist band comprising children, who are ordered to play when people are killed, so no one can hear the screams and the gunfire.

This book comes with an afterward and sources for more information about the Khmer Rouge and how to help rebuild Cambodia, which is still recovering from the effects of this short but terrible time in history. A short book, but gripping page by page. Patricia McCormick took a risk by giving Arn's voice a dialect reflective of a non-native speaker of English. It worked well, and you got a better sense of who he was by allowing his voice to remain the way you would hear it if he spoke to you himself.

A brilliant portrait of someone who never gave up even when he lost hope.