Every 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 & fend for himself To survive Sungju creates a gang & lives by thieving fighting begging & stealing rides on cargo trains 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 & to fear arrest imprisonment & even execution This riveting memoir allows young readers to learn about other cultures where freedoms they take for granted do not exist