Staff Book and Media Recommendations

Inside Out & Back Again

Thanhha Lai

Inside Out & Back Again is on the 2014 Sequoyah Children's Masterlist and is a quick read written in verse-like prose recommended for Grades 4 – 8.  This book is based on the author's own life story of moving to America when the Vietnam War ended in 1975.  What a truly harrowing experience that must have been for the author for we know how many Americans felt about the Vietnamese during that time frame.  Thanhha Lai's Inside Out & Back Again won the 2011 National Book Award for young people's literature and a Newbery Honor.

The protagonist Ha' is 10 years old when her family makes the decision to come to America.  Ha' and her brothers are made to feel stupid while trying to learn English and the American way of life.  Fortunately for Ha', she is befriended by two classmates and a retired teacher who tutors Ha' in English.  I could not help but laugh at all the times Ha' is angered by whoever invented the English language!  The story is eye-opening in that one tends to think of immigrants as wanting to be in America but at the fall of Saigon, Ha's mother felt she had no choice but to leave Vietnam.  Her children, of course, had to leave the only home they knew for a country that did not welcome them.

Definitely recommended reading! ~ Anita Hill

Reviewed April 2013