A Step From Heaven (Paperback)

by An Na (Author) "Just to the edge, Young Ju..." (more)
Key Phrases: step from heaven, witch teacher, piano fingers, Young Ju, Uncle Tim, Pastor Kim (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly
Oh's appropriately girlish voice and measured reading bring to life Young Ju, quiet heroine of debut novelist Na's dark tale of a family of Korean immigrants, which just won the ALA's Printz Award for teenage literature. At age four, Young Ju is not happy to be leaving her Korean home and loving Halmoni (grandmother) to move with her parents to Mi Gook (America), believed to be the land of great promise. Through Young Ju's experiences, listeners hear the family unravel as difficulties mount for them in the States. Young Ju's parents struggle with several low-paying jobs, handicapped by their language barrier. Young Ju's alcoholic and bitter father abuses his wife and children and forbids Young Ju to socialize with American friends. And when her father crosses a frightening line in his cruelty, Young Ju bravely takes action that sets her mother, younger brother and herself on the path to yet another new life in America. Oh's characterization, which realistically captures this powerful contemporary story and gives authentic crispness to Korean words and phrases, will keep listeners in its grip. Ages 12-up.
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From School Library Journal
Grade 8 Up-An Na's 2002 Printz winning novel (Front St., 2001) is brought to full effect in this reading by Jina Oh. Young Ju emigrates from Korea with her parents when she is four. A few months later, they live in a shabby apartment in Southern California, their family expanded to include a newborn baby boy. The parents work long hours at multiple jobs, and Young Ju struggles first to understand what is going on in school and then to be permitted to participate in typically American schoolgirl activities. The pressures of immigration, language difficulties, and oppositional cultural expectations lead Young Ju's father to become a bitter and often drunk man, physically abusive of his wife and, eventually, his daughter. The stresses of the disintegrating family work on each of its members, sending Young Ju's mother into a religious foray and her brother into middle school truancy. By the time Young Ju is ready to leave for college, her father has returned to Korea and her mother has been able to establish the family in their own American home. Each of the chapters in this emotionally succinct novel might be read as a short story, although the plot-the acclimation of one young girl to a new culture and to her own family-is steady and at times suspenseful. Young Ju's narrative voice matures as she does: in early childhood, she is unclear about identity and place, later she becomes impatient with the limitations placed on her by both culture and her own understanding of what is needed, and at last she matures to a young woman who can appreciate the fact that individuals must admit to their strengths and weaknesses in order to enjoy life's possibilities. The language is rich, studded with Korean words made intelligible both by context and the reader's easy pronunciation. Tunes are sung gently and well, and there is dramatic differentiation made among the cast of characters, making this audio version an enrichment of an already superb text.
Francisca Goldsmith, Berkeley Public Library, CA
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Reading level: Young Adult
  
• Paperback: 160 pages
• Publisher: Speak (January 13, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0142500275
• ISBN-13: 978-0142500279
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.5 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars See all reviews (60 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #24,961 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Compassionate, ugly-beautiful book, January 10, 2004

By	cammykitty "cammykitty" (Minneapolis, MN United States) - See all my reviews

This book comes highly recommended. It received the Printz award for young adult literature, and is called a must-read by my writing instructor. On reading it, I can see why. On the surface, the book is about a child-immigrant's experience adapting to life in the United States. It is written more in the style of an adult novel than a YA novel. An Na rightly expects her readers to be able to handle more than a lot of books expect them too.

The voice An Na uses to tell her story is fascinating. It begins with Young Ju as a four-year old who speaks no English. Instead of using normal names for things like "toilet paper", she describes them with amazing childlike and unusual words. When she is in America, English dialogue is written how she hears it, not how it is spelled. Wonderful way to show how confusing a new language is. This book is full of touch and smell, as well as sight. She uses vivid descriptions --For just one example, the touch of her mother's rough hands feel like the lick of a cat's tongue.

The book covers Young Ju's life from Age 4 to college age, and the voice matures with her, from the child who still believes magical things, like planes fly to heaven, to a woman who is becoming independent and American despite her's fathers wish to keep her Korean-thinking and subservient.

This book is truly rich with experience. Nothing is flat. She uses many contrasts. We see her father reading the Korean newspaper avidly and then being stumped completely by a few immigration forms. And it goes on with wonderful details like that.

And as for her father, his portrayal is superb. He is a mean-spirited violent alcoholic. Yet he is their father, and at times there are very good times. At times, he worked for the family very hard. We know how he is struggling with a new culture. While there are no excuses for his behavior, we know he was not always like that. I have rarely seen a characterization that shows the destruction of a life as richly, unsentimentally and unsensationally as this.

And of course, the other treat of this book is seeing Young Ju change from a girl who watches things happen to a girl who makes things happen. A book well worth your time.

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Powerful Description of the Immigrant Experience, October 23, 2002

By	Volkert Volkersz (Snohomish, WA United States) - See all my reviews (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

This review is from: A Step From Heaven (Hardcover)

When I heard author An Na speak at a school librarian's convention in Portland, Oregon, in October, 2002, I knew I had to read this book. What she said struck a chord with me, an immigrant who came to this country when I was 3 years old from Holland in 1953. I am also very close to a young man who was adopted from Korea when he was 2 years old.

While this powerful story is about a Korean girl adapting to her new life in America, many of the struggles she faces are similar to those that I went through, even though I was a white kid from an earlier generation.

I plan to share this emotionally gripping story with my adopted Korean friend, as I believe he will find some things to relate to as well.

Don't be put off by the awkward, slow start. That's part of the story's development. Highly recommended.

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Mesmerizing, gut-wrenching, heart-warming ballet., May 10, 2002

By	"alexmat" (Northampton, MA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: A Step From Heaven (Hardcover)

This virtually flawless book traces the steps of Yung Ju, a Korean girl who moves to America (or as she clalls it, "Mi Gook" )as a young child. She thinks she is going to heaven because of all the great things she's heard about it. She soon learns that it is not. Her family struggles to find a place to live, and to learn English. Yung Ju tries her best to do good in school. She makes friends with a girl, only to be forbidden from seeing her. It unfolds into haunting grace as Yung Ju grows and matures into a young woman and her father becomes more and more abusive and becoming an ever closer to becoming an alcoholic and her brother becomes a rebel and ditches school. Strangely graceful yet real and painful, A Step From Heaven dances with pain across the stage with exquisite voice.