'Neither of us is exactly living the dream. But we're living something and that's more than either of us expected this year.'In A Step Toward Falling, Cammie McGovern tells a poignant, compelling story of not judging people on appearances and knowing how to fix the things you've broken.Emily has always been the kind of girl who tries to do the right thing - until one night when she does the worst thing possible. She sees Belinda, a classmate with developmental disabilities, being attacked. Inexplicably, she does nothing at all.Belinda, however, manages to save herself. When their high school finds out what happened, Emily and Lucas, a football player who was also there that night, are required to perform community service at a centre for disabled people. Soon, Lucas and Emily begin to feel like maybe they're starting to make a real difference. Like they would be able to do the right thing if they could do that night all over again. But can they do anything that will actually help the one person they hurt the most?

 

 

This book has been graded for interest at 12 years.

There are 368 pages in this book.

It is aimed at Young Adult readers. The term Young Adult (YA) is used for books which have the following characteristics: (1) aimed at ages 12-18 years, US grades 7-12, UK school years 8-15, (2) around 50-75k words long, (3) main character is aged 12-18 years, (4) topics include self-reflection, internal conflict vs external, analyzing life and its meaning, (5) point of view is often in the first person, and (6) swearing, violence, romance and sexuality are allowed.

This book was published in 2016 by Pan Macmillan .

Cammie McGovern is the author of the adult novels Neighborhood Watch , Eye Contact and The Art of Seeing . She is one of the founders of Whole Children , a resource center that runs after-school classes and programs for children with special needs. She lives in the US but travels to London regularly. Cammie's sister is Elizabeth McGovern, one of the stars of Downton Abbey . This is her first book for young adults.