Young and Frankie suffer through a lot of adversity throughout their adolescent lives. They both have to deal with their inability to speak English. Frankie fails the first grade because he can't speak English well enough while Young has problems initially in class. The way she describes the students and teachers speaking makes sense because you interpret things differently as a child. What really sets Frankie apart from Young are the experiences working when he was young. His entire family had to help put food on the table. He made so many sacrifices to ensure his family had their basic needs. He was put through a lot of troubles because of Papa's injuries. Their family even got sent out of the country for a time because of being illegal. Frankie worked and had school. He had to work early in the morning before school and on the weekends. This KID never had a break in his life. I think it made Frankie tough though, it helped him mature as a person. He had instilled lots of values which people today lack. He was incredibly hard working and never gave up. He rarely talked out of line and showed utmost respect for his elders.
I think Young had an identity crisis because of her Father. Poon always seemed to be favored. I don't really relate to Na's book which is why I spoke about Jimenez's in detail.
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2 comments:
Hi Andrew - What made A Step From Heaven difficult to relate to for you? I am interested. Yeah Frankie is really a hard working young man who values his family. As another blogger pointed out it is really impressive how he works so hard from such a young age on to support his family. I suppose one reason kids may be different today from those of the past is because for most of us there is no necessity to work to support our families - we just work for our spending money - I think having a level of comfort such as we have makes us much less "driven". J. Arnold
I didn't find Na's book as intriguing because of the Fiction factor. I thought Jimenez allowed the reader to get involved more because there was a more emotional based reaction from the reader. The main character in A Step From Heaven was a girl who was treated as such. I think that is why I couldn't relate. The story wasn't strong enough for me to bond with it.
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