Chorn-Pond, in real life, has spoken eloquently (and fluently) on the influence he's gained by learning English this prose diminishes both his struggle and his story. This gut-wrenching tale is marred only by the author's choice to use broken English for both dialogue and description. Arn's chilling history pulls no punches, trusting its readers to cope with the reality of children forced to participate in murder, torture, sexual exploitation and genocide. Arn does what he must to survive-and, wherever possible, to protect a small pocket of children and adults around him. Arn doesn't understand what the Khmer Rouge stands for he only knows that over the next several years he and the other children shrink away on a handful of rice a day, while the corpses of adults pile ever higher in the mango grove. McCormick's version begins when the Khmer Rouge marches into 11-year-old Arn's Cambodian neighborhood and forces everyone into the country. McCormick, known for issue-oriented realism, offers a fictionalized retelling of Chorn-Pond's youth for older readers.
The childhood of Arn Chorn-Pond has been captured for young readers before, in Michelle Lord and Shino Arihara's picture book, A Song for Cambodia (2008).
A glossary of terms is included for the uninitiated, but those heavily involved in the sport will truly understand and appreciate the nuances of scorekeeping, the politics of team assemblage, and the friends-rivals dynamics that keep life cartwheeling along behind the scenes.įaulty butt glue, waxing “down there,” and dealing with a tyrannical team coordinator won’t stop these girls from going for the gold.Ī harrowing tale of survival in the Killing Fields.
Readers may have difficulty keeping characters straight luckily there’s a trials roster to keep things relatively clear. The third-person narration alternates through the perspectives of five of the twelve girls, moving from girl to girl and back in labeled subsections within each chapter.
There are mean girls and meek girls backstabbers and best friends veterans and “brand-new baby seniors.” Some are event specialists, while others are all-arounders. There’s a closeted lesbian, and another is Jewish. The novel’s cast of hopefuls is made up of mostly white girls, with a couple of black girls, a Latina, and one girl who is half-Chinese. Only five winners.Įvery four years, a dozen of the United States’ best female gymnasts head to the USA Gymnastics Women’s Olympic Trials to compete for a spot on the U.S.
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