A Step from Heaven Dreams and Hopes

All you need to know about how dreams and hopes figure into A Step From Heaven is in the title. It might sound all ethereal and light, but it's a step from heaven, not to heaven. So basically this book is all about how dreams and hopes crash and burn. Okay, that's a little dramatic, but that's because the book is about drama, specifically how immigrant dreams burst the moment immigrants step onto American shores. The rest of the book is all about how a family tries to recover pieces of those dreams into their broken, yet poignant version of the American Dream.

Questions About Dreams and Hopes

1. What does the American Dream look like for each character?
2. What qualities do the characters need to achieve their American Dreams?
3. How are failure and disappointment important in the process of achieving a dream?
4. How are the dreams of adults different from the dreams of children? How are they similar?

Chew on This

Immigrant parents should lay off their kids about becoming successes; true success is having a child grow up into whatever he or she wants to be.

The immigrant dream of having a child become a doctor or lawyer isn't limiting; it's an achievable, realistic dream.