Inside Out & Back Again
In South Vietnam in 1975, ten-year-old Ha lives with her mother and three older brothers. The violence of the Vietnam War reaches them in the midst of celebrating Tet—Vietnamese New Year. With Saigon falling, Ha’s family makes it onto a transport ship. Their journey’s ultimate end is the American Deep South: Alabama. Thanhha Lai’s novel chronicles Ha’s family’s flight and adaptation to their new life in poems full of insight and sharp humor. For Ha, it’s not just language and food and culture that are foreign, it’s the faces and attitudes around her and the feelings she has about herself. While some people in their new community are kind to Ha’s Vietnamese family, others are not. When her new teacher tells the class to clap when Ha counts to twenty in English, Ha is “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.” Ha’s struggle with esteem, and the profound sense of longing in the story for what has been left behind, is balanced by the sense of looking forward to a future of hope as the strange new place begins to feel like home. Lai’s writing vividly conveys characters, scenes, and emotions in this compelling debut. ©2011 Cooperative Children's Book Center
CCBC Age Recommendation: Ages 10-13
Age Range:
Grades 3-5 (Ages 8-10)
Grades 6-8 (Ages 11-13)
Formats:
Novel
Poetry
Subjects:
20th Century
English Language Learners
Families
Historical Fiction
Immigration and Immigrants
Novels in Verse
Racism
Refugees
School
Self-Esteem and Self-Worth
Vietnam War
Vietnamese and Vietnamese Americans
Diversity subject:
Asian
Publishers:
Harper, HarperCollins
Publish Year: 2011
Pages: 262
ISBN: 9780061962783
CCBC Location: Fiction, Lai