Michelle Lord, illustrated by Shino Arihara,
A Song for Cambodia
Lee & Low Books, 2008

Ages 10-12

A Song for Cambodia is the painful but inspiring story of how music literally saved the life of Arn Chorn-Pond.  An orphan of the Khmer Rouge genocide in 1975, nine-year-old Arn was sent to a children’s work camp, where he was underfed and overworked, under the constantly watchful eye of armed and threatening soldiers.  When volunteers were called for to play propaganda songs, Arn, who came from a family of musicians, raised his hand.  He and five other children were chosen to learn the khim, a traditional Cambodian string instrument.  Arn excelled... but once he had learned to play, his teacher and all but one of his fellow students were executed.

Eventually, Arn and his peers were sent to fight the invading Vietnamese.  Arn soon escaped into the jungle and survived there on his own for three months before collapsing, sick with fever, near a refugee camp on the Thai border.  Here he met the man who would become his adoptive father, the Reverend Peter Pond, an American activist and humanitarian. Pond brought Arn back to the United States, where he slowly managed to heal and share his story with others.  In 1984, Arn founded the Children of War organization to teach teenagers in the U.S. about the horrors of war.

In time, the nightmares of his past evolved into dreams of helping his native country, and Arn returned to Cambodia.  He founded the Cambodian Living Arts program and located many once famous artists and musicians who had been suppressed during the Khmer regime.  Together, they are now teaching Cambodian children about their cultural heritage, which was so nearly obliterated.

Lord’s straightforward telling, paired with Arihara’s rich, subtle, and haunting illustrations, brings the reality of Arn’s story to young readers in such a way that they will be able to empathize with him, despite, one hopes, lacking the experience to imagine such brutality.  The recognition of this horror ultimately enables readers to be inspired by Arn, who says “the more good things I do to help others’ suffering - not just my own - I know that I will find myself free from my own suffering and from my own horrible past.”

Abigail Sawyer
May 2008