A ten-year-old girl and her family flee Saigon in 1975 and start a new life in Alabama, told in verse
From Saigon to Alabama
Hà is ten years old and has only ever known Saigon: its markets, its festivals and the papaya tree she tends in her family's yard. Her father has been missing in the war for years, and her mother raises Hà and her three older brothers alone. In 1975, as the war reaches the city, the family must leave everything behind and escape on a crowded ship.
Who will enjoy it
Readers aged about nine and up, and families, who appreciate moving, honest stories about refugees, family and finding a new home.
What you will get
A moving, often funny novel in verse about a young refugee finding her way in a new country, honest about loss and full of hope.
Inside Out & Back Again Facts: Pages, Genre and Setting
Genre
Children’s Books · Novel in verse · Refugees · Family
Length
288 pages · ≈ 8 h
More about this book
After weeks at sea and time in a refugee camp, the family is sponsored by a man in Alabama and begins a new life there. Hà finds English baffling, the food strange and some classmates cruel, and she misses her old life terribly. But with the help of a kind neighbour who becomes her tutor, her brothers' determination and her mother's quiet strength, she slowly learns to stand up for herself and to find small joys in her new home.
The story is told in short free-verse poems covering one year, and the simple, vivid language makes Hà's feelings immediate. Her frustrations with English grammar and her fierce pride are often very funny. The book handles war, loss and prejudice honestly but gently, in a way suitable for young readers. It is based on the author's own childhood experience of leaving Vietnam and arriving in Alabama.
Moving, funny and full of heart, an excellent introduction to the experience of refugees. It is quick to read but stays with readers, and it works especially well for classroom discussion. About 288 pages in the HarperCollins paperback, which includes an interview with the author.
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