Customer Reviews

Pushing up the Sky

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Trevor's book leads us down the path less travelled; the path where life's dreams collide with cultural identities, shakable family values, childhood tragedy, and the loss of self that can only come from raw grief. Here is a story of strength that is renewed by letting go of what's safe, daring to fall into deep pain, then starting all over by holding onto the ribbons of love that connect all families. This thought provoking memoir should be read, shared, and savored for the feelings it evokes, the hope that it brings, and the courage that it imparts.

There are several lines and scenes in this affecting memoir that have taken up permanent residence in my head, and this is one of them: "Why do you suppose when a person dies from cancer they say he lost the battle?" asks 15-year-old Jay Trevor of his mother Terra. "Dying is not about losing," he reasons, because "Heaven is filled with winners."

May we infer from that pearl of wisdom that the Trevor family has embraced the so-called gospel of prosperity? No, we may not. The forward by a family friend is more polemical than anything Terra herself says, and you can hear the smile in her syntax when the author confesses that some Sunday mornings found the Trevors "in the Lord's mountain house or camping on his beachfront property" rather than at formal worship.

The Korean church in which they eventually find fellowship attracts them partly because its pastor is diplomatic about his religious "preferences," and the discerning reader may recognize that a more doctrinaire author would have called such beliefs "convictions," because "preference" is a word better suited for questions like "one ply or two?"

That, however, is a quibble. The point is that Terra and her family respect the cultures that mark their lives without fetishizing any of them. Although questions of identity (Korean, Native American, and familial) suffuse the text like alpenglow on the Santa Lucia mountains, there are only two things in this book about which Terra and her kin are dogmatic: one of them is love, and the other is perseverance. That emphasis combines with Terra's clear-eyed humility to make this book great, placing it firmly in the ranks of worthwhile literature about adoption, loss, and redemption.

If you're going to tackle big themes on a small canvas, it helps to have Terra's straightforward writing style and eye for detail. I like her description of how newly-adopted daughter Kyeong Sook dries dishes by twisting the dishcloth "in a decidedly foreign spiral." Animals are sharply observed, too. When a red-tailed hawk or a raccoon goes anywhere near her yard, Terra notices.

Some authors are seduced by the dramatic potential of things like racism, terminal illness, and family therapy. Not Terra. Her understatement may be due as much to personality as to craft: one thing she shares with her readers is that deep-seated panic sometimes makes her outwardly calm.

Although the binding of this first edition will not stand up to hard usage, "Pushing Up the Sky" is not a vanity project for the grandchildren; it's a story of hard-won hope touched by mortality, ancestral memory, and the reverberations of international adoption, not least among them Seaweed Soup and Beef Bulgogi. The book reads like a string quintet, with members of the Trevor family taking turns on various instruments. It opens with almost Beethovenian drama, meets joy and grief head on, and closes with the wistfulness of a Korean folk song.

Have I said plainly enough that you should read this book? Terra, Gary, Kyeong Sook, Vanessa, and Jay are worth meeting, and "Pushing Up the Sky" is the next best thing to inviting them over, written by a mother whose art never eclipses her heart and soul.

This book is a must read. It is the type of book that you will pick up and read from cover to cover. This family represents America, a melting pot of cultures, with Terra trying to emphasize the importance of cultural identity as well as being or becoming an American. Terra provides a realistic view of family life with its highs and lows, sacrifices, and unconditional love.

Terra Trevor is an author who lets you in. Into her heart and head and into her family. Through this mother's eyes we meet a remarkable family. Incredibly sad and deeply emotional events happen to this family and they cope. Terra gives us glimpses, moments in time, moments treasured and moments almost too fragile to articulate - through these moments she relates the story of a mother's pain and triumph as she struggles with issues of race and identity, serious illness, marriage, adoption and even death. She tells her story honestly - no sugar coating. What I liked best about this book is that this is a REAL family,a family with flaws as well as incredible strength and extraordinary courage, bound together tightly by love. The Trevors are a family you wish lived in your neighborhood and Terra the neighbor who would be there with a cup of tea and soup to nourish when you most needed her.

I normally don't read non-fiction, but I was so lost in this book that I read it in one night! I laughed, cried, and fell in love with everyone in this memoir. It's a story that is bound to touch the heart of everyone that reads it. I would recommend it to anyone!

I laughed, I cried, I learned, I became more aware, more sensitive, and was deeply engaged in the story. I traveled, tasted, loved, and I read until 1:40 in the morning (my bed time is usually 10:30), finishing the book in three days! "Pushing up the Sky" should be required reading for students of all ages as it beautifully and poignantly addresses cultural differences and sensitivity, prejudice, honor, respect, love, and so much more in such a riviting, page-turning style.

The author did a marvelous job with her choice of words and placement of thoughts, weaving in and out and tying everything together so perfectly. What impresses me the most is her positive attitude, despite the grief and pain and loss experienced. I will continue to learn from this book and recommend it to my friends and family.

As an adopted child, I approached "Pushing up the Sky" with a wary eye hoping for an unvarnished view of this family's reality. From the first page, I was in fact engaged in a way I didn't expect. Trevor digs deeply into unspoken truths within her own heritage and adoption in general with riveting honesty and pathos. There are nuanced emotions unfamiliar to those outside of the adoption circle and Trevor has exposed and explored many heartbreaking, joyous and quietly tender moments that are idiosyncratic to these families. The delicate dance that is choreographed daily in adoption families has an additional layer of emotional minefields with the mix of not only biological children, but multi-racial ones as well. "Do you want to meet your birth mother?" "Who do I look like?" "You're not my real family!" "Did we make the right decision?" Trevor grasps these issues by the throat and delves into her own weaknesses embracing our hearts and mirroring our souls along the way.

I just finished Pushing Up the Sky yesterday, and have been allowing the warm feelings and reflections sink into my spirit. The poetry of the author's emotions touched wordless places of me. The vocabulary of her heart and the voice of her experiences is expansive. Even though I have not adopted a child, Terra's descriptions evoked similar emotions I've experienced with my step-daughter and with my own children.

I highly recommend this book to anyone who has a child -- whether 'natural,' adopted or step -- or who has ever been a child. It is a book about relationships: within the core family unit, the extended and multi-generational family, and cultural as well as geographic communities; relationships in the here and now as well as in the distance.

Pushing Up the Sky is not a happily-ever-after story. It is a microcosm of oneness in a world of diversity, and therefore full of hope for each of us.

Terra's writing inspires courage and reflection -- if she (a 'regular person') can do it, I can, too. I look forward to more books from this author!

In Pushing Up the Sky, Terra Trevor gives a surprisingly honest account of the joys and challenges inherent in trans-racial adoptions. She also shares the personal growth she found in unexpected loss and difficult family relationships. I was deeply moved by her sensitivity to her children's struggles for identity. I was incredibly proud of how she supported them. In revealing her emotional responses to traumatic experiences, she brings us closer to each other. And in that process, makes a tremendous contribution to all of us. I highly recommend this book.

Terra brings us on a real life journey into the world of adoption with all its twists and turns. She often draws us readers in with her natural tones of earth and nature although the moment we get comfortable, events bring us back to reality. As Terra accepts life and tragedy, we learn and cry with her. We laugh with her too. Warning: This book might cause one to go out to a great Korean restaurant at times! I highly recommend this book to families in all shapes or forms.