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Inside Out and Back Again #1
Inside Out & Back Again
For all the ten years of her life, Hà has only known Saigon: the thrills of its markets, the joy of its traditions, and the warmth of her friends close by. But now the Vietnam War has reached her home. Hà and her family are forced to flee as Saigon falls, and they board a ship headed toward hope. In America, Hà discovers the foreign world of Alabama: the coldness of its strangers, the dullness of its food . . . and the strength of her very own family.
262 pages, Hardcover
First published February 22, 2011
About the author
Thanhhà Lại
8 books710 followersThanhhà Lại was born in Vietnam. At the end of the war, she fled with her family to Alabama. There, she learned English from fourth graders and then spent the next decade correcting her grammar. Starting her writing life as a journalist, she worked at The Orange County Register. She switched to fiction, leading to an MFA from New York University and short story publications in various journals and anthologies. Then came Inside Out & Back Again, a National Book Award and Newbery Honor-winning verse novel based in part on her childhood as a refugee in Alabama. Next was Listen, Slowly, another middle grade novel featuring a young Vietnamese-American girl. Butterfly Yellow is her first YA novel. Her debut picture book is Hundred Years of Happiness, illustrated by Phung Nguyen Quang and Huynh Kim Lien.
Her latest book is When Clouds Touch Us, the long-awaited sequel to Inside Out & Back Again. When Clouds Touch Us is out May 9th, 2023.
Thanhhà lives with her husband, daughter and a little white dog just north of New York City.
To stay updated about Thanhhà's writing, visit www.thanhhalai.com and follow her on social media:
Twitter: twitter.com/ThanhhaLai
Instagram: instagram.com/thanhha_lai
Her latest book is When Clouds Touch Us, the long-awaited sequel to Inside Out & Back Again. When Clouds Touch Us is out May 9th, 2023.
Thanhhà lives with her husband, daughter and a little white dog just north of New York City.
To stay updated about Thanhhà's writing, visit www.thanhhalai.com and follow her on social media:
Twitter: twitter.com/ThanhhaLai
Instagram: instagram.com/thanhha_lai
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 8,447 reviews
January 28, 2019
No one would believe me
but at times
I would choose
wartime in Saigon
over
peacetime in Alabama.
I'd been saving this for when my kids got a little older so we could read it together, but when Helen Hoang mentioned it in the author's note for The Bride Test, I knew I couldn't wait that long. No matter, I'll read it again with them in a few years. It's a beautiful little book.
Inside Out & Back Again is a free verse poem that tells the tale of a Vietnamese family fleeing South Vietnam just before the fall of Saigon in 1975. Hundreds of thousands of Vietnamese refugees arrived in other countries at this time and many more died in the attempt, but this is the first book I've read about it. As Lai explains in the note at the end, it is largely based on her own experiences.
Hà is only ten years old and doesn't want to leave the place she has lived and loved her whole life. Not only that, but she fears her missing father will never come back to them if they leave Vietnam. But leave they do. And when the family arrive in Alabama, they are met with suspicion and racism. Neighbors refuse to talk to them until they convert to Christianity, which they do, and even then Hà faces bullies every day at school.
The dark themes are tempered somewhat by Hà's indomitable spirit, but it is still incredibly sad. Hà remembers Vietnam as a place of papaya trees and delicious food, of beautiful smells and friendship. Lai uses the punchy free verse to spin a whirlwind of evocative imagery, scents, and tastes around the reader. It is very effective. And it makes the cruel, unforgiving place Hà arrives in seem even more unattractive.
I felt reminded of a quote from America Is Not the Heart while reading this story:
Baggage means no matter how far you go, no matter how many times you immigrate, there are countries in you you’ll never leave.
The racism and bullying in this book are predictably horrifying to read, but what makes it even more sad is that it is ultimately about the mourning of a country once loved that doesn't fully exist anymore. It is infuriating to see white Americans treat Hà like she should be grateful for what they give her, when all she wants is her beloved home back.
Gorgeous and heartbreaking.
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January 31, 2022
Inside Out & Back Again, Thanhha Lai
Inside Out & Back Again is a verse novel by Thanhha Lai. The book was awarded the 2011 National Book Award for Young People's Literature and one of the two Newbery Honors.
The novel was based on her first year in the United States, as a ten-year-old girl who spoke no English in 1975. Inside Out and Back Again is a story about a young girl named Kim Hà and her family being forced to move to the United States because the Vietnam War had reached their home, and it was no longer safe. They board a navy ship and flee. Upon spending a couple months at a refugee camp, they end up moving to Alabama. There she struggles with learning English and confronting bullies, including one that she nicknamed Pink Boy, at her new school.
Hà at one point said, "No one would believe me but at times I would choose wartime in Saigon over peacetime in Alabama."
Eventually, she has pushed through those hard times with the help of their next door neighbor, Mrs. Washington and the support of her family. In the beginning of the book, it mentions that Hà's father, a soldier in the Vietnam war, was captured by the North Vietnamese Army when she was only a year old. In the end, Hà's family figures out that unfortunately, her father had died while in North Vietnamese hands. Hà then gets used to living in the U.S and her family celebrates the new year. She prays for good things to happen to her and her family. The main resolution of the book is family importance.
عنوانهای چاپ شده در ایران: «زندگی پشت و رو»؛ «در رویای خانه»؛ نویسنده: تانا (تاینها) لایی؛ تاریخ نخستین خوانش: روز چهاردهم ماه نوامبر سال2016میلادی
عنوان: زندگی پشت و رو؛ نویسنده: تانا (تاینها) لایی؛ مترجم: بهزاد صادقیان؛ تهران، آفرینگان، سال1395؛ در318ص؛ شابک9786003910256؛ موضوع: داستانهای آمریکائیان ویتنامی تبار - سده21م
عنوان: در رویای خانه؛ نویسنده: تانا (تاینها) لایی؛ مترجم: زهره خرمی؛ تهران، پرتقال، سال1395؛ در262ص؛ شابک9786008111641؛
یک دختر ده ساله «ویتنامی»، به نام «ها»؛ شخصیت اصلی است، او روزهای خود را با مراقبت از درخت «پاپایا»، گوش دادن به قصه های مادر، انتظار برای برگشتن پدری که هرگز او را ندیده، و سر و کله زدن، با سه برادر بزرگتر خویش، میگذراند؛ اما آنگاه که آتش جنگ، در «ویتنام جنوبی» شعله ور میشود، «ها» مجبور میشود، همراه خانواده اش، سوار کشتی شده، «ویتنام» را ترک کند؛ «زندگی پشت و رو» روایتگر سالهای سرنوشت ساز زندگی همین دختر است
نقل از کتاب زندگی پشت و رو: (تقدیم به میلیونها پناهنده، در سرتاسر دنیا، به امید این که هر یک خانه ای بیابید؛ فصل باران پیش از موعد: وانمود میکنیم؛ فصل باران؛ پیش از موعد رسیده؛ در دوردست؛ بمب ها؛ مثل رعدوبرق صدا میکنند؛ صاعقه؛ آسمان را روشن می کند، آتش؛ همچون باران میبارد.؛ در دوردست، ولی آنقدر نزدیک که دیده شود، که شنیده شود.؛ در واقع؛ آنقدرها هم دور نیست.)؛ پایان نقل
تاریخ بهنگام رسانی 04/12/1399هجری خورشیدی؛ 10/11/1400هجری خورشیدی؛ ا. شربیانی
Inside Out & Back Again is a verse novel by Thanhha Lai. The book was awarded the 2011 National Book Award for Young People's Literature and one of the two Newbery Honors.
The novel was based on her first year in the United States, as a ten-year-old girl who spoke no English in 1975. Inside Out and Back Again is a story about a young girl named Kim Hà and her family being forced to move to the United States because the Vietnam War had reached their home, and it was no longer safe. They board a navy ship and flee. Upon spending a couple months at a refugee camp, they end up moving to Alabama. There she struggles with learning English and confronting bullies, including one that she nicknamed Pink Boy, at her new school.
Hà at one point said, "No one would believe me but at times I would choose wartime in Saigon over peacetime in Alabama."
Eventually, she has pushed through those hard times with the help of their next door neighbor, Mrs. Washington and the support of her family. In the beginning of the book, it mentions that Hà's father, a soldier in the Vietnam war, was captured by the North Vietnamese Army when she was only a year old. In the end, Hà's family figures out that unfortunately, her father had died while in North Vietnamese hands. Hà then gets used to living in the U.S and her family celebrates the new year. She prays for good things to happen to her and her family. The main resolution of the book is family importance.
عنوانهای چاپ شده در ایران: «زندگی پشت و رو»؛ «در رویای خانه»؛ نویسنده: تانا (تاینها) لایی؛ تاریخ نخستین خوانش: روز چهاردهم ماه نوامبر سال2016میلادی
عنوان: زندگی پشت و رو؛ نویسنده: تانا (تاینها) لایی؛ مترجم: بهزاد صادقیان؛ تهران، آفرینگان، سال1395؛ در318ص؛ شابک9786003910256؛ موضوع: داستانهای آمریکائیان ویتنامی تبار - سده21م
عنوان: در رویای خانه؛ نویسنده: تانا (تاینها) لایی؛ مترجم: زهره خرمی؛ تهران، پرتقال، سال1395؛ در262ص؛ شابک9786008111641؛
یک دختر ده ساله «ویتنامی»، به نام «ها»؛ شخصیت اصلی است، او روزهای خود را با مراقبت از درخت «پاپایا»، گوش دادن به قصه های مادر، انتظار برای برگشتن پدری که هرگز او را ندیده، و سر و کله زدن، با سه برادر بزرگتر خویش، میگذراند؛ اما آنگاه که آتش جنگ، در «ویتنام جنوبی» شعله ور میشود، «ها» مجبور میشود، همراه خانواده اش، سوار کشتی شده، «ویتنام» را ترک کند؛ «زندگی پشت و رو» روایتگر سالهای سرنوشت ساز زندگی همین دختر است
نقل از کتاب زندگی پشت و رو: (تقدیم به میلیونها پناهنده، در سرتاسر دنیا، به امید این که هر یک خانه ای بیابید؛ فصل باران پیش از موعد: وانمود میکنیم؛ فصل باران؛ پیش از موعد رسیده؛ در دوردست؛ بمب ها؛ مثل رعدوبرق صدا میکنند؛ صاعقه؛ آسمان را روشن می کند، آتش؛ همچون باران میبارد.؛ در دوردست، ولی آنقدر نزدیک که دیده شود، که شنیده شود.؛ در واقع؛ آنقدرها هم دور نیست.)؛ پایان نقل
تاریخ بهنگام رسانی 04/12/1399هجری خورشیدی؛ 10/11/1400هجری خورشیدی؛ ا. شربیانی
May 8, 2012
{This review originally appeared on Clear Eyes, Full Shelves.}
Thanhha Lai writes her verses in her award winning middle grade novel in verse, Inside Out and Back Again, from the heart, and memory of deeply felt experience.
She poignantly and artistically brings emotion, both painful and joyful, straight from the page and into the senses. She recounts her family's escape before the fall of Saigon through the eyes and the voice of Ha Ma. With other refugees they're packed into small, often unsanitary quarters on a ship that will take them to safety, freedom and a new culture.
Ha Ma, her brother Quang remembers, “was as red and fat as a baby hippopotamus” when he first saw her, thus inspiring her name, Vietnamese for river horse. He could not have imagined that in a few years her name would become the stick that tormented her in a foreign land (Alabama) far from her beloved Saigon.
I taught in a public high school for many years and some of my students were children of those leaving their homelands in search of a better or freer life. Children that were just like Ha Ma. I went through the process to become certified to teach English as a Second Language. Yet with all my training and experience I realize that I could not have known the real pain these children lived with each day, in a new and strange environment.
Reading Inside Out and Back Again brought me insights I'd never considered. Perhaps it is an all too human failing to believe we have understanding.
Emily Dickinson wrote that she knows something is poetry when,
No, Emily, there is no other way.
Verse or poetry distills experience into its most elemental form. It drips with love, scorn, hope, desperation, faith and understanding. Feeling the confusion of a small child in beautifully constructed lines brings a childlike dimension of understanding of the heart of experience.
The reader experiences this in Inside Out and Back Again, when the family is on a ship swaying in the ocean, headed for another country. Ha's fatherless family drifts rocking back and forth seeing only water stretching before them endless and overwhelming. At only ten years of age, she comes to the realization that she has only her mother and brothers.
The father lives in the family's minds as a rainbow of hope. Still they must move forward to escape certain death. If they stay in Vietnam they would likely be caught up in the throes of a lost war facing a dark, uncertain future. After a long time at sea, a sponsor from America boards their ship to bring them to a small Alabama town to begin a new life in a strange, odd land.
Thanhha Lai's writing is such that while reading, I found myself imagining myself as a child seeing someone who looks so different reaching out for my family, offering home, hope, hospitality and happiness, yet, still not feeling emotionally safe.
Needless to say, Inside Out and Back Again is most deserving of all of its aclaim. If you're not accustom to reading novels in verse, this would be a wonderful choice with which to start, as the writing is very tight and the story is completely absorbing
I now understand
when they make fun of my name,
yelling ha-ha-ha down the hall
when they ask if I eat dog meat,
barking and chewing and falling down laughing
when they wonder if I lived in the jungle with tigers,
growling and stalking on all fours.
I understand
because Brother Khoi
nodded into my head
on the bike ride home
when I asked if kids
said the same things
at his school.
Thanhha Lai writes her verses in her award winning middle grade novel in verse, Inside Out and Back Again, from the heart, and memory of deeply felt experience.
She poignantly and artistically brings emotion, both painful and joyful, straight from the page and into the senses. She recounts her family's escape before the fall of Saigon through the eyes and the voice of Ha Ma. With other refugees they're packed into small, often unsanitary quarters on a ship that will take them to safety, freedom and a new culture.
Ha Ma, her brother Quang remembers, “was as red and fat as a baby hippopotamus” when he first saw her, thus inspiring her name, Vietnamese for river horse. He could not have imagined that in a few years her name would become the stick that tormented her in a foreign land (Alabama) far from her beloved Saigon.
I taught in a public high school for many years and some of my students were children of those leaving their homelands in search of a better or freer life. Children that were just like Ha Ma. I went through the process to become certified to teach English as a Second Language. Yet with all my training and experience I realize that I could not have known the real pain these children lived with each day, in a new and strange environment.
Reading Inside Out and Back Again brought me insights I'd never considered. Perhaps it is an all too human failing to believe we have understanding.
Emily Dickinson wrote that she knows something is poetry when,
...it makes my whole body so cold no fire can ever warm me. I know that is poetry. If I feel physically as if the top of my head were taken off, I know that is poetry. These are the only ways I know it. Is there any other way?
No, Emily, there is no other way.
Verse or poetry distills experience into its most elemental form. It drips with love, scorn, hope, desperation, faith and understanding. Feeling the confusion of a small child in beautifully constructed lines brings a childlike dimension of understanding of the heart of experience.
The reader experiences this in Inside Out and Back Again, when the family is on a ship swaying in the ocean, headed for another country. Ha's fatherless family drifts rocking back and forth seeing only water stretching before them endless and overwhelming. At only ten years of age, she comes to the realization that she has only her mother and brothers.
The father lives in the family's minds as a rainbow of hope. Still they must move forward to escape certain death. If they stay in Vietnam they would likely be caught up in the throes of a lost war facing a dark, uncertain future. After a long time at sea, a sponsor from America boards their ship to bring them to a small Alabama town to begin a new life in a strange, odd land.
Thanhha Lai's writing is such that while reading, I found myself imagining myself as a child seeing someone who looks so different reaching out for my family, offering home, hope, hospitality and happiness, yet, still not feeling emotionally safe.
All the while
shame.
This year I hope
I truly learn
Needless to say, Inside Out and Back Again is most deserving of all of its aclaim. If you're not accustom to reading novels in verse, this would be a wonderful choice with which to start, as the writing is very tight and the story is completely absorbing
June 5, 2020
“I’m practicing
to be seen.”
This book grabbed my attention with its beautiful cover, and I’m really glad that it did. Inside Out and Back Again tells the tale of Kim Hà and her journey during wartime in Vietnam.
Hà and her family are forced to flee as Saigon falls, and they board a ship headed toward Alabama.
In America, the family has to start anew, where they discover the coldness of its strangers, the dullness of its food, the strange shape of its landscape . . . and the strength of their very own family.
“Oh, my daughter,
at times you have to fight,
but preferably
not with your fists.”
I wasn’t expecting to read this so fast, but I simply could not put it down. I especially appreciated the love this family held for one another during such difficult times.
However, the format of the story made me feel a bit disconnected from the tale. I felt like I was getting a glimpse into someone’s life, but not being fully immersed into it. I wanted to feel more connected to the family and know a bit more of their past.
But overall it was a poignant and important story that will be on my mind for the next few days.
3.5 stars
*Note: I'm an Amazon Affiliate. If you're interested in buying Inside Out & Back Again , just click on the image below to go through my link. I'll make a small commission!*
This review and more can be found on my blog.
to be seen.”
This book grabbed my attention with its beautiful cover, and I’m really glad that it did. Inside Out and Back Again tells the tale of Kim Hà and her journey during wartime in Vietnam.
Hà and her family are forced to flee as Saigon falls, and they board a ship headed toward Alabama.
In America, the family has to start anew, where they discover the coldness of its strangers, the dullness of its food, the strange shape of its landscape . . . and the strength of their very own family.
“Oh, my daughter,
at times you have to fight,
but preferably
not with your fists.”
I wasn’t expecting to read this so fast, but I simply could not put it down. I especially appreciated the love this family held for one another during such difficult times.
However, the format of the story made me feel a bit disconnected from the tale. I felt like I was getting a glimpse into someone’s life, but not being fully immersed into it. I wanted to feel more connected to the family and know a bit more of their past.
But overall it was a poignant and important story that will be on my mind for the next few days.
3.5 stars
*Note: I'm an Amazon Affiliate. If you're interested in buying Inside Out & Back Again , just click on the image below to go through my link. I'll make a small commission!*
This review and more can be found on my blog.
November 17, 2016
Find all of my reviews at: http://52bookminimum.blogspot.com/#ud...
For those of you who know me, you might remember last year I discovered my youngest was failing to get his required nightly reading completed by opting to sit on the toilet and stare at the wall for 20 minutes every night rather than ever opening a flippin’ book. That little revelation led to us buddy reading Wonder. Unfortunately the boy child still appears to have been swapped with someone else’s baby and has yet to discover the wonderful world of book loving, so we are buddying up again this year. After having much success with The Outsiders and All American Boys he took his teacher’s recommendation and we ended up with this one - and wow what an important and timely little book it was.
Told in verse, Inside Out and Back Again is about Hà, a young girl growing up in war torn Vietnam. With the fall of Saigon, Hà’s family realizes they can no longer hold on to the hope of remaining in their country and flee to America via ship. Upon reaching a refugee camp in Florida, Hà’s mother chooses Alabama as their final destination in hopes that her children can have the life she dreamed of – college, families, careers, etc. This is the story of Hà’s first year in America.
First things first, since this was told in verse my kiddo was able to read it in only a couple of days which made him feel AWESOME so thank you Thanhha Lai for that format. And most importantly, to the messages presented. . .
“You deserve to grow up
where you don’t worry about
saving half a bite of sweet potato”
“Everyone knows the ship
could sink,
unable to hold
the piles of bodies
that keep crawling on
like raging ants
from a disrupted nest.
But no one
is heartless enough
to say
stop
because what if
they had been
stopped
before their turn?”
“Mother says,
People share when they know
they have escaped hunger.
Shouldn’t we share
because there is hunger?”
They are something we should all be thinking of . . .
Now I need a little bit of help choosing our next book (I’m leaning toward Sherman Alexie, but not 100% committed). We’ve definitely found a formula that is working – topics that are relevant to today, the shorter the better so dude feels like he’s making progress and maintains interest, NO instalovin’ mumbo jumbo, NO dystopia, would prefer something that is not a potential “required read” (i.e., The Lord of the Flies, The Chocolate War, etc.). Thanks in advance for any suggestions!
For those of you who know me, you might remember last year I discovered my youngest was failing to get his required nightly reading completed by opting to sit on the toilet and stare at the wall for 20 minutes every night rather than ever opening a flippin’ book. That little revelation led to us buddy reading Wonder. Unfortunately the boy child still appears to have been swapped with someone else’s baby and has yet to discover the wonderful world of book loving, so we are buddying up again this year. After having much success with The Outsiders and All American Boys he took his teacher’s recommendation and we ended up with this one - and wow what an important and timely little book it was.
Told in verse, Inside Out and Back Again is about Hà, a young girl growing up in war torn Vietnam. With the fall of Saigon, Hà’s family realizes they can no longer hold on to the hope of remaining in their country and flee to America via ship. Upon reaching a refugee camp in Florida, Hà’s mother chooses Alabama as their final destination in hopes that her children can have the life she dreamed of – college, families, careers, etc. This is the story of Hà’s first year in America.
First things first, since this was told in verse my kiddo was able to read it in only a couple of days which made him feel AWESOME so thank you Thanhha Lai for that format. And most importantly, to the messages presented. . .
“You deserve to grow up
where you don’t worry about
saving half a bite of sweet potato”
“Everyone knows the ship
could sink,
unable to hold
the piles of bodies
that keep crawling on
like raging ants
from a disrupted nest.
But no one
is heartless enough
to say
stop
because what if
they had been
stopped
before their turn?”
“Mother says,
People share when they know
they have escaped hunger.
Shouldn’t we share
because there is hunger?”
They are something we should all be thinking of . . .
Now I need a little bit of help choosing our next book (I’m leaning toward Sherman Alexie, but not 100% committed). We’ve definitely found a formula that is working – topics that are relevant to today, the shorter the better so dude feels like he’s making progress and maintains interest, NO instalovin’ mumbo jumbo, NO dystopia, would prefer something that is not a potential “required read” (i.e., The Lord of the Flies, The Chocolate War, etc.). Thanks in advance for any suggestions!
March 19, 2023
“Black seeds spill like clusters of eyes, wet and crying.”
“I’m practicing
to be seen.”
Based on a pivotal year in her own life, Thanhha Lai's Inside Out & Back Again follows the life of a young girl named Hà and her family. Quickly after the story opens, Saigon falls and they become refugees in Alabama. Hà's struggle to create a new life with her family in Alabama is told in the form of a diary. As a story about how immigrants cope with being part of a new culture while simultaneously being separated by it, there are no real surprises. However, I liked the way the story was told and the details Lai uses. Hà's difficulties with English and her references to how different it is from Vietnamese also resonated with me as I've been learning Vietnamese while preparing for a visit to Vietnam next month. Quick read with nice details. 3.75 stars
“I’m practicing
to be seen.”
Based on a pivotal year in her own life, Thanhha Lai's Inside Out & Back Again follows the life of a young girl named Hà and her family. Quickly after the story opens, Saigon falls and they become refugees in Alabama. Hà's struggle to create a new life with her family in Alabama is told in the form of a diary. As a story about how immigrants cope with being part of a new culture while simultaneously being separated by it, there are no real surprises. However, I liked the way the story was told and the details Lai uses. Hà's difficulties with English and her references to how different it is from Vietnamese also resonated with me as I've been learning Vietnamese while preparing for a visit to Vietnam next month. Quick read with nice details. 3.75 stars
August 28, 2020
Even if rivers run dry and rocks are polished smooth, a silkworm, upon death, still emits silk.
--Nguyễn Du
Our selection for “Alabama” took us first to Vietnam, and my daughters and I were happy to add a little international flavor to our American reading project this year.
This middle grades novel, Inside Out & Back Again, is the semi-autobiographical version of Thanhha Lai's story. . . told from the perspective of a fictional girl, Hà. We come to know Hà and her family, learn of their prosperous beginnings in Northern Vietnam, their evacuation to the South, their father's permanent disappearance in the war, their new status as refugees, and then the complete upheaval of their lives as immigrants in Alabama.
I can not imagine how challenging it must have been to be a Vietnamese refugee in the mid-1970s in the state of Alabama, but I don't need to imagine it; our protagonist maps out the emotional journey quite well.
The bullying was upsetting, and, I suspect, downplayed from the author's actual experiences. A lot of the typical garbage you might imagine: being tripped down the hallways, followed home, called “chink” and “ching-chong” and “pancake face.”
My Asian daughters bristled at several passages and we were reminded of parts of Judy Blume's Blubber, which also does a good job at depicting the bullying of one girl.
Interestingly, Hà's bullies were all male, so when we got to the final page of the book and saw that the author grew up to look like this:
The girls and I had a good laugh, knowing that the author had the last laugh. This story was a lot like our favorite Vietnamese dishes—so pretty, and deceptively spicy!
--Nguyễn Du
Our selection for “Alabama” took us first to Vietnam, and my daughters and I were happy to add a little international flavor to our American reading project this year.
This middle grades novel, Inside Out & Back Again, is the semi-autobiographical version of Thanhha Lai's story. . . told from the perspective of a fictional girl, Hà. We come to know Hà and her family, learn of their prosperous beginnings in Northern Vietnam, their evacuation to the South, their father's permanent disappearance in the war, their new status as refugees, and then the complete upheaval of their lives as immigrants in Alabama.
I can not imagine how challenging it must have been to be a Vietnamese refugee in the mid-1970s in the state of Alabama, but I don't need to imagine it; our protagonist maps out the emotional journey quite well.
The bullying was upsetting, and, I suspect, downplayed from the author's actual experiences. A lot of the typical garbage you might imagine: being tripped down the hallways, followed home, called “chink” and “ching-chong” and “pancake face.”
My Asian daughters bristled at several passages and we were reminded of parts of Judy Blume's Blubber, which also does a good job at depicting the bullying of one girl.
Interestingly, Hà's bullies were all male, so when we got to the final page of the book and saw that the author grew up to look like this:
The girls and I had a good laugh, knowing that the author had the last laugh. This story was a lot like our favorite Vietnamese dishes—so pretty, and deceptively spicy!
January 20, 2014
Let me tell you something. If I wasn't forced to write so many essay's about this stupid book, then I might have enjoyed it more. Maybe if we didn't have to analyze every sentence discussing every little detail until I accidentally tear one of the papers out because we had to flip back so many times, I probably might have enjoyed it more. This could have been a great book, and it's a shame that the new common core thinks we are "Learning" from writing useless paragraphs on how Ha's experience relates to the title. Don't let something like school ruin what could have been a great novel.
March 4, 2011
Thinking about the most memorable of children's novels, one trait in all of them has to ring true in order for them to click with their readers. The books must contain some kind of "meaning". Even the frothiest Charlie and the Chocolate Factory-type offering isn't going to remain long in the public's brain if there isn't at least a little "meaning" slipped in there. Now when I use the term "meaning" I'm being purposefully vague because it's not the kind of thing you can easily define. What is meaningful to one person might strike another as trite or overdone. I personally believe that adult novels contain this saccharine faux-meaning a lot more often than their juvenile contemporaries, and why not? Adult books can get away with it while children's books are read by the harshest of all possible critics: children. As a librarian and a reviewer, I'm pretty tough too. I get mighty suspicious of prose that gets a little too lyrical or characters that spout the book's thinly disguised premise on every other page. All this is leading up to the fact that when I turned my jaded suspicion-filled toxic eyeballs on Thanhha Lai's Inside Out and Back Again I found nothing to displease me. Lai's debut novel speaks with a natural voice that's able to make salient points and emotional scenes without descending into overly sentimental goo. This author makes a point to draw from her own life. The result is a novel that works in every conceivable way.
"No one would believe me but at times I would choose wartime in Saigon over peacetime in Alabama." Ha has known both in her life, actually. Born in Vietnam during the war, Ha lives with her mother and three older brothers. Her father disappeared years ago on a navy mission when Ha was just one. Today the family doesn't even know if he's alive, but when the chance comes to flee Saigon and make a new life in America, Ha's mother doesn't hesitate. Once they're settled in Alabama, Ha has a whole new set of problems ahead of her. She's homesick, mad that she's no longer the smartest girl in class, and tormented after school by some of the boys. Yet the solution, it seems, is not to become someone different but to take what she is already and find a way to make her new life work.
In a way Inside Out and Back Again kind of marks the second coming of the verse novel. A couple years ago this style of writing for children was hugely popular, helped in no small part by Newbery Award winning books like Karen Hesse's Out Of The Dust. For some it represented the perfect way to get to the heart of a story without unnecessary clutter. Unfortunately, others regarded it as a quick and easy way to write a novel with a word count only slightly higher than your average picture book. The market was saturated and finally verse novels began to peter out. It finally got to the point where I became convinced that the only way a verse novel would work would be if there was some reason for it to even BE in verse. If the author couldn't justify the format then why did they even choose that style of writing? I haven't reviewed a verse novel since 2009's Tropical Secrets: Holocaust Refugees in Cuba by Margarita Engle and like Engle's book, Thanhha Lai's novel is written in verse for a concrete, very good reason. In both cases you have stories where children were entering strange new lands where they did not necessarily know the language. To make this book a verse novel, the child reader gets to be inside Ha's head while at the same time encountering sentences that are broken up in ways different from your average middle grade novel. The result is simultaneously intimate and isolating. It's perfect.
There are a fair number of children's books about immigrants coming to America, most of them historical in some way. Ha's story feels a bit more contemporary since it's set in the late 20th century. Other immigrant stories for kids always cover the same territory (hostile neighbors, the other kids at school, strange foods, etc.). What I like about Lai's book is that Ha does something I've rarely seen immigrant characters do in books for kids. She gets mad. I mean really rip-roaring, snorting, furious. Here she is, a bright kid, and now she has to feel like she's stupid all that time at school simply because English isn't her first language. It's infuriating! And it was this spark of anger that cinched Ha's character for me. You can have a sympathetic protagonist set upon by the world all you want, but when that character exhibits an emotion other than mere passive acceptance or sorrow, that's when you find something about them to hold on to. Ha's anger lets child readers really understand her. It's necessary to who she is, drilled home by the section called "Wishes". In that two page spread, Ha discusses all the things she wishes for, including the return of her father. Then, tellingly, "Most I wish I were still smart."
Maybe what I really liked about the book was that it wasn't a one trick pony. Sure, much of it is about moving to America and what that's like. But it's also a novel about family. Ha's brothers are hugely annoying to her when the family is living in Vietnam. They're all older, after all, and they get a bit more attention and freedom. When the family uproots and leaves everything they've known behind, Ha begins to connect to them in new ways. She becomes a comfort and helpmate to her brother Khoi when he suffers a kind of nervous breakdown over the death of his baby chick. She learns self-defense from Vu, her Bruce Lee obsessed brother. And of course it's her brother Quang who really saves the day for her in the end (I won't give away how). The change is slow in coming, which keeps it from feeling manipulative or false. It's just a natural coming together of family members in a hostile world. Good stuff.
As for the writing itself, I'm a bit tired of the term "lyrical". That's just personal, though, and I'm sure that if you troll the professional reviews for descriptions of the book that word will surface again and again in relation to this book. With good reason, of course. Lai knows from which she speaks. At the same time, though, she's making choices in the narrative that I found very interesting. For example, at first you think that you're reading a kind of pseudo-diary of Ha's life since her first two entries comes with dates (February 11th and 12th, respectively). Yet when you hit the third piece, it describes the ways in which Ha's brothers tease her ending, not with a specific date, but with the phrase, "Every day". In this way Lai is able to separate out the things that happen only once on a specific day and those things that occur frequently. It's a subtle technique, but it makes the author's point. Lai also makes small notes about the world that give a person pause. Since this is the story of a girl moving to Alabama in the early 70s, it will probably prompt a lot of discussion in bookgroups when she says of the cafeteria, "On one side of the bright, noisy room, light skin. Other side, dark skin. Both laughing, chewing, as if it never occurred to them someone medium would show up."
Lai is also able to teach kids about Vietnamese society without coming off all school marmish. I knew about the holiday of Tet in a vague sense (mostly from Ten Mice for Tet), but what I didn't know was that not only is Tet a Vietnamese New Year's, it's also the day everyone celebrates their own birthdays.
All told, Inside Out and Back Again has the brevity of a verse novel packed with a punch many times its size. It's one of the lovelier books I've read in a long time, and can make you think about and question the entire immigrant novel genre, so long a permanent part of the American children's literary canon. Lai drew upon much of her own life to write this book. Now I'd like to see what she's capable of when she looks at other subjects as well. Great new author. Great new book.
For ages 9-12.
"No one would believe me but at times I would choose wartime in Saigon over peacetime in Alabama." Ha has known both in her life, actually. Born in Vietnam during the war, Ha lives with her mother and three older brothers. Her father disappeared years ago on a navy mission when Ha was just one. Today the family doesn't even know if he's alive, but when the chance comes to flee Saigon and make a new life in America, Ha's mother doesn't hesitate. Once they're settled in Alabama, Ha has a whole new set of problems ahead of her. She's homesick, mad that she's no longer the smartest girl in class, and tormented after school by some of the boys. Yet the solution, it seems, is not to become someone different but to take what she is already and find a way to make her new life work.
In a way Inside Out and Back Again kind of marks the second coming of the verse novel. A couple years ago this style of writing for children was hugely popular, helped in no small part by Newbery Award winning books like Karen Hesse's Out Of The Dust. For some it represented the perfect way to get to the heart of a story without unnecessary clutter. Unfortunately, others regarded it as a quick and easy way to write a novel with a word count only slightly higher than your average picture book. The market was saturated and finally verse novels began to peter out. It finally got to the point where I became convinced that the only way a verse novel would work would be if there was some reason for it to even BE in verse. If the author couldn't justify the format then why did they even choose that style of writing? I haven't reviewed a verse novel since 2009's Tropical Secrets: Holocaust Refugees in Cuba by Margarita Engle and like Engle's book, Thanhha Lai's novel is written in verse for a concrete, very good reason. In both cases you have stories where children were entering strange new lands where they did not necessarily know the language. To make this book a verse novel, the child reader gets to be inside Ha's head while at the same time encountering sentences that are broken up in ways different from your average middle grade novel. The result is simultaneously intimate and isolating. It's perfect.
There are a fair number of children's books about immigrants coming to America, most of them historical in some way. Ha's story feels a bit more contemporary since it's set in the late 20th century. Other immigrant stories for kids always cover the same territory (hostile neighbors, the other kids at school, strange foods, etc.). What I like about Lai's book is that Ha does something I've rarely seen immigrant characters do in books for kids. She gets mad. I mean really rip-roaring, snorting, furious. Here she is, a bright kid, and now she has to feel like she's stupid all that time at school simply because English isn't her first language. It's infuriating! And it was this spark of anger that cinched Ha's character for me. You can have a sympathetic protagonist set upon by the world all you want, but when that character exhibits an emotion other than mere passive acceptance or sorrow, that's when you find something about them to hold on to. Ha's anger lets child readers really understand her. It's necessary to who she is, drilled home by the section called "Wishes". In that two page spread, Ha discusses all the things she wishes for, including the return of her father. Then, tellingly, "Most I wish I were still smart."
Maybe what I really liked about the book was that it wasn't a one trick pony. Sure, much of it is about moving to America and what that's like. But it's also a novel about family. Ha's brothers are hugely annoying to her when the family is living in Vietnam. They're all older, after all, and they get a bit more attention and freedom. When the family uproots and leaves everything they've known behind, Ha begins to connect to them in new ways. She becomes a comfort and helpmate to her brother Khoi when he suffers a kind of nervous breakdown over the death of his baby chick. She learns self-defense from Vu, her Bruce Lee obsessed brother. And of course it's her brother Quang who really saves the day for her in the end (I won't give away how). The change is slow in coming, which keeps it from feeling manipulative or false. It's just a natural coming together of family members in a hostile world. Good stuff.
As for the writing itself, I'm a bit tired of the term "lyrical". That's just personal, though, and I'm sure that if you troll the professional reviews for descriptions of the book that word will surface again and again in relation to this book. With good reason, of course. Lai knows from which she speaks. At the same time, though, she's making choices in the narrative that I found very interesting. For example, at first you think that you're reading a kind of pseudo-diary of Ha's life since her first two entries comes with dates (February 11th and 12th, respectively). Yet when you hit the third piece, it describes the ways in which Ha's brothers tease her ending, not with a specific date, but with the phrase, "Every day". In this way Lai is able to separate out the things that happen only once on a specific day and those things that occur frequently. It's a subtle technique, but it makes the author's point. Lai also makes small notes about the world that give a person pause. Since this is the story of a girl moving to Alabama in the early 70s, it will probably prompt a lot of discussion in bookgroups when she says of the cafeteria, "On one side of the bright, noisy room, light skin. Other side, dark skin. Both laughing, chewing, as if it never occurred to them someone medium would show up."
Lai is also able to teach kids about Vietnamese society without coming off all school marmish. I knew about the holiday of Tet in a vague sense (mostly from Ten Mice for Tet), but what I didn't know was that not only is Tet a Vietnamese New Year's, it's also the day everyone celebrates their own birthdays.
All told, Inside Out and Back Again has the brevity of a verse novel packed with a punch many times its size. It's one of the lovelier books I've read in a long time, and can make you think about and question the entire immigrant novel genre, so long a permanent part of the American children's literary canon. Lai drew upon much of her own life to write this book. Now I'd like to see what she's capable of when she looks at other subjects as well. Great new author. Great new book.
For ages 9-12.
June 22, 2011
Read this straight through in one evening. It repeatedly put me in mind of an outstanding teacher at my school, whose family immigrated to the United States when she was about Ha's age. When we had a "Guess That Baby Picture" contest at school, she brought a school photo of herself around the age of 8, because that was all she had. There were no baby photos of her, no visual memories of her early years; they were too poor for photographs. All through this book I kept thinking, "I wonder if this is what it was like for her," and "I have to give her a copy of this book, see what she thinks of it."
Me? I thought it was wonderful. I am always drawn to novels written in free verse. The form forces a talented author to show clarity and emotion with minimal language, and Lai's is just beautiful. It helped me understand what it would feel like to move from a familiar, beloved homeland to a new country with foreign customs, words, foods, and faces, to suddenly feel stupid because you cannot communicate verbally. Entitled Feel Dumb, this poem expresses that feeling succinctly:
MiSSS SScott / points to me, / then to the letters / of the English alphabet.
I say / A B C and so on.
She tells the class to clap.
I frown.
MiSSS SScott / points to the numbers / along the wall.
I count up to twenty.
The class claps / on its own.
I'm furious, / unable to explain / I already learned / fractions / and how to purify / river water.
So this is / what dumb / feels like.
I hate, hate, hate it.
Because of Lai's insight, I gain insight myself. I can place myself in Ha's shoes in that moment. I feel what she is feeling. And I hurt for her. I get a sense of how must it feel to be physically and verbally attacked because I look different from everyone else in the room, because I cannot speak their words, because I practice a different religion, because I am an outsider with no idea of how I can make them understand me, know me. I am able to see how even good intentions can hurt, as the situation in the above poem and several others demonstrate.
There is so much pain in this little novel, but oh, so much hope. Just beautiful.
Me? I thought it was wonderful. I am always drawn to novels written in free verse. The form forces a talented author to show clarity and emotion with minimal language, and Lai's is just beautiful. It helped me understand what it would feel like to move from a familiar, beloved homeland to a new country with foreign customs, words, foods, and faces, to suddenly feel stupid because you cannot communicate verbally. Entitled Feel Dumb, this poem expresses that feeling succinctly:
MiSSS SScott / points to me, / then to the letters / of the English alphabet.
I say / A B C and so on.
She tells the class to clap.
I frown.
MiSSS SScott / points to the numbers / along the wall.
I count up to twenty.
The class claps / on its own.
I'm furious, / unable to explain / I already learned / fractions / and how to purify / river water.
So this is / what dumb / feels like.
I hate, hate, hate it.
Because of Lai's insight, I gain insight myself. I can place myself in Ha's shoes in that moment. I feel what she is feeling. And I hurt for her. I get a sense of how must it feel to be physically and verbally attacked because I look different from everyone else in the room, because I cannot speak their words, because I practice a different religion, because I am an outsider with no idea of how I can make them understand me, know me. I am able to see how even good intentions can hurt, as the situation in the above poem and several others demonstrate.
There is so much pain in this little novel, but oh, so much hope. Just beautiful.
November 23, 2018
I always love a good verse novel, and this book was just that.
A story about immigration and attempts to adapt to a new culture, Inside Out & Back Again was truly beautiful and heartwarming. It touched me emotionally on the struggles Hà had to deal with.
Hà is different from everyone around her. She is a Vietnamese girl among Americans. She is the weird black-haired girl in her school. She is the girl everyone makes fun of. Despite all this, Hà tries to stay strong and continues working and hoping for life to get better. She works hard to learn English to overcome the differences and challenges, and I really admire her for that. Another reason I loved this book is that I was able to connect and relate to her struggles. Many people around the world also deal with the problem of being laughed at just because they are different from people around them, and I think this book has a really nice message for everyone to understand.
I now understand
when they make fun of my name,
yelling ha-ha-ha down the hall
when they ask if I eat dog meat,
barking and chewing and falling down laughing
when they wonder if I lived in the jungle with tigers,
growling and stalking on all fours.
I understand
because Brother Khoi
nodded into my head
on the bike ride home
when I asked if kids
said the same things
at his school.
~~
“Oh, my daughter,
at times you have to fight,
but preferably
not with your fists.”
A story about immigration and attempts to adapt to a new culture, Inside Out & Back Again was truly beautiful and heartwarming. It touched me emotionally on the struggles Hà had to deal with.
Hà is different from everyone around her. She is a Vietnamese girl among Americans. She is the weird black-haired girl in her school. She is the girl everyone makes fun of. Despite all this, Hà tries to stay strong and continues working and hoping for life to get better. She works hard to learn English to overcome the differences and challenges, and I really admire her for that. Another reason I loved this book is that I was able to connect and relate to her struggles. Many people around the world also deal with the problem of being laughed at just because they are different from people around them, and I think this book has a really nice message for everyone to understand.
I now understand
when they make fun of my name,
yelling ha-ha-ha down the hall
when they ask if I eat dog meat,
barking and chewing and falling down laughing
when they wonder if I lived in the jungle with tigers,
growling and stalking on all fours.
I understand
because Brother Khoi
nodded into my head
on the bike ride home
when I asked if kids
said the same things
at his school.
~~
“Oh, my daughter,
at times you have to fight,
but preferably
not with your fists.”
August 7, 2023
3.5 stars
This was a short read about a young girl who had just been placed din America during the Vietnam war. This was an important story from an immigrant and even though most of us will never understand what this person went through, it was interesting to get a glimpse into her life and hardships.
This was a short read about a young girl who had just been placed din America during the Vietnam war. This was an important story from an immigrant and even though most of us will never understand what this person went through, it was interesting to get a glimpse into her life and hardships.
Audio book source: Hoopla
Story Rating: 3.5 stars
Narrators: Doan Ly
Narration Rating: 4 stars
Genre: Historical Fiction Middle Grade
Length: 2h 3m
April 15, 2024
Short but impactful story but still felt a bit disconnected from the story for some reason.
Still think everyone should read it and learn :)
Interested enough to try the second book though.
Still think everyone should read it and learn :)
Interested enough to try the second book though.
May 11, 2020
Our lives
will twist and twist,
intermingling the old and the new
until it doesn't matter
which is which.
A short book about the experience of a little girl escaping from Saigon to Alabama, facing the hard life of an immigrant: the cultural shock, the homesickness, the rejection from the community. I appreciated it as a document of an experience (the book is based on the author's life), not as much as a novel. I suppose it would be educational for a child, but for an adult it has unfortunately very little appeal. I loved how the writer used food a a symbol of cultural difference: it made me remember when I moved with my family at the age of 9, and used to complain about our new home where bread didn't taste right and the bakery didn't have my favourite pastries. On a side note, I am not a fan of this particular writing style: call me old-school, but I don't think you can call something a poem just because you change line after each sentence! This book could have been written exactly like that, without starting new lines, and no one would ever suspected it wasn't prose. Overall an interesting read, to be read to younger children to teach them what real integration is, and to adults to remind us that we were all immigrants at some point.
will twist and twist,
intermingling the old and the new
until it doesn't matter
which is which.
A short book about the experience of a little girl escaping from Saigon to Alabama, facing the hard life of an immigrant: the cultural shock, the homesickness, the rejection from the community. I appreciated it as a document of an experience (the book is based on the author's life), not as much as a novel. I suppose it would be educational for a child, but for an adult it has unfortunately very little appeal. I loved how the writer used food a a symbol of cultural difference: it made me remember when I moved with my family at the age of 9, and used to complain about our new home where bread didn't taste right and the bakery didn't have my favourite pastries. On a side note, I am not a fan of this particular writing style: call me old-school, but I don't think you can call something a poem just because you change line after each sentence! This book could have been written exactly like that, without starting new lines, and no one would ever suspected it wasn't prose. Overall an interesting read, to be read to younger children to teach them what real integration is, and to adults to remind us that we were all immigrants at some point.
July 25, 2018
This book has been on my radar (and my shelves) for a while and I’m glad I finally read it. Told in verse from the POV of 10 year old Hà, we get a glimpse into life in Vietnam during the war, the journey of a refugee, and the struggles to adapt and be accepted in a new country. Truly a wonderful, heartfelt (and sometimes heartbreaking) book.
February 23, 2024
3. to 3.5
This is a middle grade story told in verse (poetry style) all about a young girl and her family who go to America (Alabama) as refugees at the end of the Vietnam War. I think this story is a powerful testimony of what they went through. So many struggles trying to learn English, how to interact with others, eating new foods, attending a new school, dealing with bullies for their differences and prejudices as well. Their father is missing from war and the their family is grieving not having him around. We see them working through their pain and struggles and how to learn living in America. This brings awareness to what refugee families go/went through and is a powerful, moving story.
For content purposes: Parents should be aware before their children read this of the following:
- The religion discussions in this book reflect the refugees culture back home. The mother says they are Christians to ensure a better chance to being allowed to come to America as refugees. They are also baptized to appear as Christians in an effort to make their neighbors like them better because of all the prejudices they are facing. However, their religion is not Christianity and there is situations of chanting, being made fun of for Buddah and the child yells back "Jesus" to the kids, worship of idols is shown and use of incense etc. I just want to mention this so parents are aware before their children read this so they can have conversations about these things before they go in blind. This way parental guidance can be given since it's technically a children's book. Additionally, some of the content I didn't personally agree on but I certainly understand it is culturally appropriate and enjoyed the overall message of the story. I think it's a very important message to be shared.
Other content includes war violence mentioned and refugee struggles that may be hard for some readers to read, but it's important to the narrative of the story.
This is a middle grade story told in verse (poetry style) all about a young girl and her family who go to America (Alabama) as refugees at the end of the Vietnam War. I think this story is a powerful testimony of what they went through. So many struggles trying to learn English, how to interact with others, eating new foods, attending a new school, dealing with bullies for their differences and prejudices as well. Their father is missing from war and the their family is grieving not having him around. We see them working through their pain and struggles and how to learn living in America. This brings awareness to what refugee families go/went through and is a powerful, moving story.
For content purposes: Parents should be aware before their children read this of the following:
- The religion discussions in this book reflect the refugees culture back home. The mother says they are Christians to ensure a better chance to being allowed to come to America as refugees. They are also baptized to appear as Christians in an effort to make their neighbors like them better because of all the prejudices they are facing. However, their religion is not Christianity and there is situations of chanting, being made fun of for Buddah and the child yells back "Jesus" to the kids, worship of idols is shown and use of incense etc. I just want to mention this so parents are aware before their children read this so they can have conversations about these things before they go in blind. This way parental guidance can be given since it's technically a children's book. Additionally, some of the content I didn't personally agree on but I certainly understand it is culturally appropriate and enjoyed the overall message of the story. I think it's a very important message to be shared.
Other content includes war violence mentioned and refugee struggles that may be hard for some readers to read, but it's important to the narrative of the story.
May 24, 2011
Hey, reviewers? A lot of you are using the word "prose" where you mean "poetry", and I can't take it.
Also, there are actually lots and lots of kids' and YA books written in verse. Thanks.
Anyway, actual review: I find it difficult to review this, just like I found it difficult to review the last novel-in-verse about a Vietnamese refugee in the 1970s that I read, All the Broken Pieces. Like anything negative I might say is me judging the immigrant experience itself.
At first I didn't like this that much, but it's growing on me some after the fact. Ha reads like a more original character than many, and the thoroughly-sketched mother and sketchily-sketched brothers are all so clear to me in my mind. One heartbreaking sentence at the very end made me feel that Brother Khoi has his own fascinating book in a parallel universe.
The sense of place is much greater for the scenes in and memories of Vietnam than they are for Alabama.
Overall: good, but not great. I don't think it's a Newbery.
Also, there are actually lots and lots of kids' and YA books written in verse. Thanks.
Anyway, actual review: I find it difficult to review this, just like I found it difficult to review the last novel-in-verse about a Vietnamese refugee in the 1970s that I read, All the Broken Pieces. Like anything negative I might say is me judging the immigrant experience itself.
At first I didn't like this that much, but it's growing on me some after the fact. Ha reads like a more original character than many, and the thoroughly-sketched mother and sketchily-sketched brothers are all so clear to me in my mind. One heartbreaking sentence at the very end made me feel that Brother Khoi has his own fascinating book in a parallel universe.
The sense of place is much greater for the scenes in and memories of Vietnam than they are for Alabama.
Overall: good, but not great. I don't think it's a Newbery.
November 8, 2017
A must read!
March 12, 2019
Audiobook performed by Doan Ly
Ha is the 10-year-old daughter of a Vietnamese Navy Officer who has gone missing while on a mission. As the Americans pull out of the war and Saigon is about to fall, Ha and her family escape the country via ship. Eventually they gain a sponsor, and the family tries to start over in the USA, a strange land, where the language, food, customs and religion are all different than what they are used to.
This middle-grade novel focusing on the immigrant experience is told entirely in verse, and I applaud Lai for how much she manages to convey in so few words. Ha is a strong little girl, focusing on becoming a star pupil at school (as she had done in Saigon), trying to make friends, to learn the customs and traditions of American celebrations like Halloween, Thanksgiving and Christmas, trying to NOT get beaten by bullies. Ha watches her mother work a menial job and slowly acknowledge that her husband is likely dead. In one heart-wrenching poem the child admits:
No one would believe me
but at times
I would choose
wartime in Saigon
over
peacetime in Alabama
Still the family perseveres, and makes their way in this new land, celebrating each accomplishment, and giving thanks for the opportunity to succeed. It’s a moving story and wonderfully told. It is at once complex and straightforward, nuanced, and simple.
The author note at the end of the work explains that much of what happens to Ha in the novel actually happened to the author.
The book won the National Book Award, and was also named a Newbery Honor Book.
The audiobook is performed by Doan Ly. She has a wonderful delivery for this book. Great pace and she’s believable as a young girl. I did read at least half the book in text format, however because I was anxious to finish it.
Ha is the 10-year-old daughter of a Vietnamese Navy Officer who has gone missing while on a mission. As the Americans pull out of the war and Saigon is about to fall, Ha and her family escape the country via ship. Eventually they gain a sponsor, and the family tries to start over in the USA, a strange land, where the language, food, customs and religion are all different than what they are used to.
This middle-grade novel focusing on the immigrant experience is told entirely in verse, and I applaud Lai for how much she manages to convey in so few words. Ha is a strong little girl, focusing on becoming a star pupil at school (as she had done in Saigon), trying to make friends, to learn the customs and traditions of American celebrations like Halloween, Thanksgiving and Christmas, trying to NOT get beaten by bullies. Ha watches her mother work a menial job and slowly acknowledge that her husband is likely dead. In one heart-wrenching poem the child admits:
No one would believe me
but at times
I would choose
wartime in Saigon
over
peacetime in Alabama
Still the family perseveres, and makes their way in this new land, celebrating each accomplishment, and giving thanks for the opportunity to succeed. It’s a moving story and wonderfully told. It is at once complex and straightforward, nuanced, and simple.
The author note at the end of the work explains that much of what happens to Ha in the novel actually happened to the author.
The book won the National Book Award, and was also named a Newbery Honor Book.
The audiobook is performed by Doan Ly. She has a wonderful delivery for this book. Great pace and she’s believable as a young girl. I did read at least half the book in text format, however because I was anxious to finish it.
July 15, 2022
Mostly a memoir of the author as a 10 year old Vietnamese girl, from Tet in 1975 through January 1976. Written in prose, we see Ha’s life as the only girl and youngest child in a family with three brothers. Their mother is raising them alone because her husband has been missing in the war for nearly 9 years but she’s not given up hope for his return. Their decision to leave when the South falls, afloat at sea on an overcrowded ship with only one working engine, rescue at sea by the US Navy, refugee camp in Guam, and finally the family decision to request asylum in the US is quickly and well told. They first land in Florida, and then get sponsored by the owner of an auto repair shop in Alabama who wants to train the brother, who was studying engineering, to be a mechanic in his shop. The struggle to learn English, as hard as it is, provides some of the story’s comic relief. The adjustment to school, dealing with bullies and having no friends, finding kindness unexpectedly, and letting go of the past, fills out the year and the story. Very moving and beautifully rendered. National Book Award winner.
March 6, 2020
Book #6 for Middle Grade March
Challenge #4 - A book set in another country
Challenge #4 - A book set in another country
January 9, 2018
It's a book I didn't know exist until a few days ago, and I'm truly glad it came into my life.
This book deeply touched me because my dad's own family immigrated from Vietnam to France and the Vietnamese culture is one I grew up hearing about but never truly experienced it.
This story follows Hà, her mother and three brothers, through their journey from a Vietnam at war to an American that doesn't necessarily welcome them with opened arms. It's a book about being stripped off your culture, your language, your country, your everything, and yet still trying to live a good life, a better life no matter the struggles and people's cruelty.
It's a quick read, it won't take you a lot of time to get through, but I really think you'd gain something by reading it.
From the author's note:
“The emotional aspect is important because of something I noticed in my nieces and nephews. They may know in general where their parents came from, but they can't really imagine the noise and smells of Vietnam, the daily challenges of starting over in a strange land.”
This book deeply touched me because my dad's own family immigrated from Vietnam to France and the Vietnamese culture is one I grew up hearing about but never truly experienced it.
This story follows Hà, her mother and three brothers, through their journey from a Vietnam at war to an American that doesn't necessarily welcome them with opened arms. It's a book about being stripped off your culture, your language, your country, your everything, and yet still trying to live a good life, a better life no matter the struggles and people's cruelty.
It's a quick read, it won't take you a lot of time to get through, but I really think you'd gain something by reading it.
From the author's note:
“The emotional aspect is important because of something I noticed in my nieces and nephews. They may know in general where their parents came from, but they can't really imagine the noise and smells of Vietnam, the daily challenges of starting over in a strange land.”
September 10, 2019
What a wonderful book! I so appreciated seeing through Há's eyes as she and her family moved from Saigon to Alabama and all that they went through, trying to grieve what was left behind and adapt to what was new. This is a wonderful book to help kids understand what immigration can be like (and to some degree, how it feels to be a new student from a far away place). It did a wonderful job of both educating and building empathy. It would also be a great book to use to study Vietnamese culture. This would be an excellent read-aloud book for an upper elementary classroom. I highly recommend it for readers both young and old.
May 4, 2016
Putting side that I was not the biggest fan of the writing, because I do not think that simply separating sentences with a lot of space is poetry, the story and her experiences made up for it.
“Whoever invented English
should have learned
to spell.”
It is not often that I see a book about immigration to which I can relate. I come from an European background and nationally, I am Caribbean, so I have the whole, not a native English speaker, but still get white privilege thing. This book took me back to what it is like completely learning a new language, and how some people will make you feel stupid, ignoring that perhaps you speak more languages than they do, for your inability to speak perfectly the first day you arrive at school.
I was also on a boat, fleeing as well, unlike her I did not make it, however, her depictions of the experience were resonating with me throughout the story. What happened afterwards when she was here, was more boring, but relevant nonetheless.
"... having learned from Mother that the pity giver feels better, never the pity receiver.”
I agree. Pity is not the solution to systematic oppression and discrimination.
I am however not sure how I feel about this quote:
“People living on others' goodwill cannot afford political opinions.”
It seems very accurate, but I want to look at it from a more historical perspective. I'll leave it for when I re-read the book.
“Whoever invented English
should have learned
to spell.”
It is not often that I see a book about immigration to which I can relate. I come from an European background and nationally, I am Caribbean, so I have the whole, not a native English speaker, but still get white privilege thing. This book took me back to what it is like completely learning a new language, and how some people will make you feel stupid, ignoring that perhaps you speak more languages than they do, for your inability to speak perfectly the first day you arrive at school.
I was also on a boat, fleeing as well, unlike her I did not make it, however, her depictions of the experience were resonating with me throughout the story. What happened afterwards when she was here, was more boring, but relevant nonetheless.
"... having learned from Mother that the pity giver feels better, never the pity receiver.”
I agree. Pity is not the solution to systematic oppression and discrimination.
I am however not sure how I feel about this quote:
“People living on others' goodwill cannot afford political opinions.”
It seems very accurate, but I want to look at it from a more historical perspective. I'll leave it for when I re-read the book.
February 12, 2021
This was an emotional read. Told in poems/poetry, I was captured by its lines and stanzas and the experience of witnessing a war.
January 30, 2019
Hay phết mà thấy tiếc vì bị chìm ở VN, đa số thấy VN toàn nổi nổi mấy cuốn thơ kiểu “tumblr post” - tức là deep, khá depress, heartbreaking in love và không viết hoa mỗi đầu câu.
Điển hình: Milk & honey, trước tớ cũng thích quyển này lắm, nhưng giờ đọc lại chấm 2 sao vì sau ngần ấy thời gian thì thấy nó khá nông và hầu như chẳng cảm thấy đọng lại gì cho cam.
So, hãy tìm đọc tập thơ này của Thanhha Lai, bản thân không trải qua chiến tranh và may mắn được sống trong thời bình, nhưng đọc tập thơ này vẫn thấy nhoi nhói làm sao á.
Điển hình: Milk & honey, trước tớ cũng thích quyển này lắm, nhưng giờ đọc lại chấm 2 sao vì sau ngần ấy thời gian thì thấy nó khá nông và hầu như chẳng cảm thấy đọng lại gì cho cam.
So, hãy tìm đọc tập thơ này của Thanhha Lai, bản thân không trải qua chiến tranh và may mắn được sống trong thời bình, nhưng đọc tập thơ này vẫn thấy nhoi nhói làm sao á.
April 25, 2017
I don't recommend listening to this one. The narration is stiff and the Vietnamese words are spoken in italics (see Older's thoughts on italicizing a native language)
I didn't read this one with my eyes because I have an aversion to novels in verse. While they can be more nuanced than the typical novel and though you have to work harder to get to the depths due to a scarcity of words, they seem choppy to me, jarring, and a little flighty. I'm not a fan of poetry, either, so the whole paint a big picture with the most minimal of brushes thing doesn't appeal.
However, this semi-autobiographical story is both timely and not overtold. Ha, her brothers, and their mother all flee VietNam, traveling downstream on a Naval ship to sneak out of the country. They're eventually rescued at sea and wind up in Alabama where they're sponsored by The Cowboy and his sour wife.
There are several topics in this short tale that are relevant to today, specifically refugees seeking safety in America, cultural integration, racism, and the goods and evils of Christianity. Unpacking these issues in the gentle way this story manages should engender some sympathy from young readers. In addition, there are the standard topics of starting a new school, bullies, community, and the value of well-meaning adults in a child's life making the story relatable to kids who are not Asian refugees in the 70's because some things just never change.
I didn't read this one with my eyes because I have an aversion to novels in verse. While they can be more nuanced than the typical novel and though you have to work harder to get to the depths due to a scarcity of words, they seem choppy to me, jarring, and a little flighty. I'm not a fan of poetry, either, so the whole paint a big picture with the most minimal of brushes thing doesn't appeal.
However, this semi-autobiographical story is both timely and not overtold. Ha, her brothers, and their mother all flee VietNam, traveling downstream on a Naval ship to sneak out of the country. They're eventually rescued at sea and wind up in Alabama where they're sponsored by The Cowboy and his sour wife.
There are several topics in this short tale that are relevant to today, specifically refugees seeking safety in America, cultural integration, racism, and the goods and evils of Christianity. Unpacking these issues in the gentle way this story manages should engender some sympathy from young readers. In addition, there are the standard topics of starting a new school, bullies, community, and the value of well-meaning adults in a child's life making the story relatable to kids who are not Asian refugees in the 70's because some things just never change.
August 13, 2016
"No one would believe me
but at times/I would choose
wartime in Saigon
over
peacetime in Alabama."
This prize winning book is powerful and sad. A young girl named Kim Ha has to leave Vietnam during the war and ends up in the southern State of Alabama.
To begin with, Kim Ha's father has been MIA for 10 years, and after they leave for America they wonder how he can find them if he comes home. So already Kim Ha has sadness in her heart. There is so much more that she has to leave in Vietnam, mainly her people and her country. Most children only have to move to another town, which is hard enough on them.
The style of writing is beautiful; it is different--free verse poetry, which is the only way I know how to write poetry--no rules, no regular meters, no rhymes. It works very well in this book and somehow makes it much more powerful.
When she begins school in America, some children tease her, as if her life wasn't hard enough. The word "teasing" is such a light word to use for how she is treated, perhaps I should say, "hateful bullying." Some children will always tease anyone that they believe is fair game; some adults do the same. I don't understand why the schools have not be able to stop this from happening, but the teachers can't be everywhere at once, so I suppose that is the reason.
Anyway, it is a quick read and well worth it.
but at times/I would choose
wartime in Saigon
over
peacetime in Alabama."
This prize winning book is powerful and sad. A young girl named Kim Ha has to leave Vietnam during the war and ends up in the southern State of Alabama.
To begin with, Kim Ha's father has been MIA for 10 years, and after they leave for America they wonder how he can find them if he comes home. So already Kim Ha has sadness in her heart. There is so much more that she has to leave in Vietnam, mainly her people and her country. Most children only have to move to another town, which is hard enough on them.
The style of writing is beautiful; it is different--free verse poetry, which is the only way I know how to write poetry--no rules, no regular meters, no rhymes. It works very well in this book and somehow makes it much more powerful.
When she begins school in America, some children tease her, as if her life wasn't hard enough. The word "teasing" is such a light word to use for how she is treated, perhaps I should say, "hateful bullying." Some children will always tease anyone that they believe is fair game; some adults do the same. I don't understand why the schools have not be able to stop this from happening, but the teachers can't be everywhere at once, so I suppose that is the reason.
Anyway, it is a quick read and well worth it.
June 3, 2020
10-year old Hà, her older brothers and mother miss their father/husband, a naval officer, who never returned from a mission. Their lives in Saigon are torn asunder when the city is attacked by the North, and they are fortunate to escape via a river route. Landing in a refugee camp, they eventually come to America, where a farmer from Alabama agrees to sponsor them all. Things are difficult for all, but especially Hà, who is placed with younger children despite her aptitude for learning. She becomes a target because she looks different and speaks with an accent. But for the intervention of a kind neighbor, who helps her and the family get acclimated to their new lives in America. Nice book, especially for younger readers
Don't skip Thanhha Lai's afterword of her own immigrant experiences.
Don't skip Thanhha Lai's afterword of her own immigrant experiences.
August 27, 2015
A beautiful story, told in verse, about a young girl emigrating to America from Vietnam at the end of the war. Delicate and tender, I picked it up at the library to flip through while my kids chose books, and became fully engrossed. Read it in less than an hour. I hope that this is being used in schools, as an important way to talk about both poetry and the Vietnam War.
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