I will admit that I haven't read many 'immigrant experience' stories, but this one really got me. I also don't typically love journal entry style narratives, but it totally works here. It felt absolutely true in every sense of the word. Perhaps it's because the author drew from her real-life experie...
4.5 starsI couldn't put this book down! It follows a year in the life of a Vietnamese refuge and her family's flight from war torn Saigon to Alabama. Peacetime Alabama is safer, but young Ha missed her homeland. Everything in America is strange and different; the language, the food, the trees. She...
Like always, the novel-in-verse format made the story more lyrical and quicker to read. In this case, it made the voice a bit more distinctive than it would've been in traditional format. I'm honestly surprised, however, that the format also made it a little bit harder for me to get into the book th...
It’s the end of the long Vietnam War and Ha and her family live in Vietnam. It’s a beautiful place, despite the war going on all around them, with delicious food and lush gardens. Ha does brilliant work in school and she has a wonderful, close-knit family. It’s a small Eden in the midst of the terri...
This novel-in-verse is the story of a year in Hà's life, from the last Tết that she spends with her family in South Vietnam, to the day that she and her family flee on a ship bound for Thailand, to her first semester of school in Alabama, to the first Tết that she spends in America. There's a papay...
Ever since I picked up What My Mother Doesn’t Know in middle school, I’ve had a soft spot for novels in verse. If you tell me about a novel in verse that has gotten rave reviews and has won a major award, such as Inside Out and Back Again, chances are that I am going to pick it up. Although I think ...
I'm often skeptical of novels in verse, but this one flowed beautifully. Great writing and a quick read about a girl's immigration to Alabama from Vietnam in 1975. I hadn't realized this was semi-autobiographical, but it soon became clear it must be, because the main character's experiences seemed s...
In this novel in verse, a ten-year-old girl chronicles the events in the tumultuous, life-changing year of 1975 in which she and her family must flee South Vietnam and settle in Alabama. A poignant and thoughtful refugee story. In an afterword, Lai explains the autobiographical background of the sto...
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