(Image credit: www.powells.com)Na, An. A Step from Heaven. Asheville, NC: Front Street, 2001.
Young Ju Park moves from Korea to the United States when she is five. The road to a better life is long with many challenges, sadness's, and joys.
Young Ju Park, like the rose of sharon she left behind in Korea, is a delicate flower able to withstand heat, humidity, drought and poor soils. A flower so easily broken that it is hard to imagine what makes it stand through the urban heat and still find the will to bloom.
Young Ju and her parents move from Korea with the hope of finding a better life in America. As Young Ju struggles to learn the language, and her mother finds strength in faith and friendship, her father falls into the abyss of alcoholism. And so unfolds this story of an immigrant family from Young Ju's preschool years to her graduation from high school and hopes for the future.
Will her father's descent into alcohol undue them all? Or will Young Ju and her mother and brother be able to keep their footing, secure in the knowledge that they are only A Step from Heaven?
Booklist Editors' Choice. International Reading Association Children's Book Award. Michael L. Printz Award. New York Times Notable Books. YALSA Best Books for Young Adults. ALA Notable Children's Books. School Library Journal Best Books.
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