Contemporary Realistic Fiction Review: A Step from Heaven

1.BIBLIOGRAPHY

Na, An. 2001. A Step from Heaven. New York : Speak. ISBN 1886910588.

2.PLOT SUMMARY

A young Korean girl from a fishermen’s town migrated to the US with her family to find a better life. Life in America was a journey for her and dreamers’ family. Instead of ‘heaven’ they found life in America was not carpeted with the red-roses. From learning a new language to adjusting to the new society and internal family conflict to keep their identity to growing up and acculturation to the family breakup, they had endured for a victorious life.

The story is told in the tones of a little girl’s memoirs manner with a resonating voice in the beginning to a more mature young lady’s narrative of her life perspectives at the end. There are linguistic and cultural exposures a reader can learn from both the narrator’s ethnic and new world’s sides. It is a captivating story readers of all grades should enjoy.

3.CRITICAL ANALYSIS

Using the standard analytical basis of characters, plot, setting, theme and style, I can present the analysis as follows.

Characters

The main character is Young Ju, the first-born child of the Park family. Young Ju is a dreamer and a thinker. She reflects on things talked and taught to her by her family. Young Ju has a strong character and is an independent thinker though she has to suppress her own thoughts most of the time due to her original Korean tradition.

Plot

The Park family moves from Korea to the US to find a new life, a step lower than heaven, for their child’s future. They dream high but the hardship in America tears their dreams almost into pieces. They have to struggle to survive. Finally Young Ju’s father left her family and went back to Korea, possibly with a new woman. Yet, Young Ju, her little brother and her mother kept on until they finally got their own house a short while before Young Ju leaves for a college where she gets a full scholarship.

Setting

The story starts out in a fisherman’s town in Korea and moves on to California, USA. The Park’s new life in America was first in a cousin’s house then they moved out to their own rented room in a run down neighborhood. At the end the story setting moves to a little home they bought which gives the similar feels to their original home in Korea.

Theme

The theme is simple: A family from Korea moves to the US to find a better life but instead of finding heaven on earth from the beginning, they have to fight through poverty, hardships and troubles until they find success and happiness at the end. The story shows how endurance and staying focus while not giving up yields a satisfactory result at the end.

Style

This contemporary realistic fiction’s written style was very resonating. The little girl Yong Ju voices and resonates what she things while she hears others talking all along the story. Each chapter is short and completes in itself. The language used is a progressive one from a little child’s expressions to a more mature young adult at the end. Readers will find many ‘foreign words’ and expressions from the beginning but reading along will help them decipher what those words, for example ‘Mi Gook’, means.

4.REVIEW EXCERPT(S)

Winner of the 2002 Michael L. Printz Award
From School Library Journal, Marton, Diane S. indicated that this book is a beautiful written, affecting work.
From the New York Times book review, the book was endowed with a haunting grace by the exquisite voice of a new young writer.
The Book Report reviewed that it was a powerful story of cultural clash.

5.CONNECTIONS

The two books I found are similar to A Step from Heaven. Three protagonists all immigrated from other countries to the U.S., and had a cross-culture perspective and have to face culture adaption and conflict.
The first connection book I found is also a young adult novel, a semiautobiographical chronicle describing a story based on a 14-year-old Indican boy’s perspective.

Alexie, Sherman. 2009. The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian. New York : Little, Brown. ISBN: 0316013692.

The second connection book I found also portrayed a story based on a twelve-year-old girl’s perspective. Anita de la Torre’s life and her family escaped from the Trujillo regime in the Dominican Republic when she was 10, but in Before We Were Free she imagines, through the stories of her cousins and friends, how it was for those who stayed behind.

Alvarez, Julia. 2004. Before We Were Free. New York : Laurel Leaf. ISBN: 9780440237846