Inside Out and Back Again (original 2011; edition 2011)

5Q, 4P. Ten year old Ha lives in Saigon with her Mother and three brothers. Nine years have gone by since Ha has seen her father who left on a Navy mission when she was one. Each day, she dreams he will return. She dreams papayas will grow big and ripe on her tree. She dreams war will end in Vietnam. Ha's mother decides to take her family and flee to the United States. After many weeks at sea they land in... Alabama. Now in a new country with a strange language and no papayas, Ha experiences a new life with a new set of rules, strange ways, and the hope of peace. Thanhha Lai's autobiographical story is written in eloquent, gripping prose. Inside Out and Back Again is a wonderfully moving, poetic story. I felt I was alongside Ha at every struggle and triumph. This book is excellent for 5th grade through middle school, for both male and female. An especially good choice for a first time novel-in-verse. ( )

I started reading this one aloud to my kids, but I got so engrossed in it that I finished it while they were otherwise occupied.

I kind of wish I'd read this one before I read The One and Only Ivan because they're written in a similar style (Ivan isn't written in verse, but it has a similar simplicity), and I think it would have had a bigger impact if I'd read Inside Out & Back Again first. Inside Out is much subtler than Ivan, though. I wrote that Applegate used a light touch with Ivan, but Thanhha Lai used a much lighter touch in Inside Out.

Even with the effect of the simple style having worn off a little, I quite enjoyed this book. Written from the perspective of a ten-year-old girl, the world of this book is rich with the things that mean the most to a child: the taste of papaya, the frustration of being held back a grade, the embarrassment of being different. In the end, I feel like the challenges were minimized and glossed over a bit. Perhaps I shouldn't be so incredulous that things turned out so positively after only one year, but I am.

It occurred to me that, despite the fact that my father fought in the Vietnam War, I've never had much interest in the country. Of course, aside from some photographs my dad brought home, I knew little about the country or his time there. Dad certainly didn't talk about it, and I've known very few people from Vietnam who could report a different perspective from what I saw in the movies. So, reading about the positive aspects of the culture and the landscape from the inside was very interesting to me.

I also realized reading this book that I've never really thought deeply about what it would be like to be a refugee. I'm terrified of visiting for pleasure a place where they speak a language I don't know (which is pretty every non-English-speaking country...yes, I am a typical monolingual United Statesian, although I'm not at all proud of my lack of foreign language proficiency), much less being thrust into a whole new culture after being ousted from the only home I've known. I appreciate the opportunity to see this perspective.

The book was short, and left me wanting more, which I suppose is a much more positive review than saying it was too long, and I wished it had ended long before I turned the last page. I would be interested in reading a for-grownups memoir from the perspective of a Vietnamese refugee. ( )

WATCH BOOK TRAILER

Ha and her family flee Vietnam and resettle in Alabama. There she struggles with grammar, customs, dress (she wears a flannel nightgown to school, for example), and also cruel rejection from mean classmates. Based on the author’s experiences as a child refugee, this National Book Award and 2012 Newbery Honor winner is both humorous and heartbreaking.

Inside out and Back Again is about a young girl from Saigon who has to flee with her family because of the Vietnam war. She is a clever girl in a family full of brothers. Her dad also went missing before her family left the country and they never see him again. She has a hard time adjusting to her new home in Alabama where she faces the challenge of learning english and making new friends. ( )

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