His crime? He allegedly stole a propaganda poster from a wall in his hotel. This decision came after 22-year old American college student Otto Warmbier died last month after being released from a 17-month stint in a North Korean hard labor prison. Just this week, the US banned all American travel to North Korea due to safety concerns for American citizens. At age 12, Sungju finds himself alone and homeless, and he forms a gang of other homeless boys in order to survive. On their own without government benefits, first Sungju’s father, then his mother, leave to find food and do not return.

They move to a much poorer area, Gyeong-Seong, where Sungju attends school and his parents try to find work. But when Sungju’s father falls out of favor with the North Korean government, his family is booted from the capital city of Pyongyang. But this true story of survival and determination allows young readers to learn about another culture where the freedoms they take for granted do not exist.The son of a prominent military officer, Sungju Lee has plenty of food to eat, loving parents, and a nice bed to sleep in. You may not want to believe the horrors of the modern state of North Korea. You may not believe the things that he was forced to endure at such a young age. Then he and co-author Susan McClelland describe the four years of danger and desperation he endured after being abandoned by his parents.

The book starts with a brief, never-before-told history of modern North Korea that puts Sungju’s personal story into context. Sungju richly recreates his scabrous story, depicting what it was like for a boy alone to create a new family with his gang, “his brothers,” to daily be hungry and to fear arrest, imprisonment, and even execution. To survive, Sungju creates a gang and lives by thieving, fighting, begging, and stealing rides on cargo trains. It’s against this backdrop that my story takes place.” The book, the first of its kind aimed at young adults, is a first-person account of what it is like to be born and raised in a terrifying environment.” - The GuardianĮvery Falling Star, the first book to portray contemporary North Korea to a young audience, is the intense memoir of a North Korean boy named Sungju who was forced at age twelve to live on the streets and fend for himself.ĭedicating his book to those he left behind in North Korea, Sungju writes, “North Korea is indeed a Hermit Kingdom a true-to-life dystopian nation. “Presents North Korea as a horrifying real-life dystopia.

Every falling star author