Inside Out and Back Again: A Newbery Honor Award Winner - Hardcover

Lai, Thanhhà

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0061962783 ISBN 13: 9780061962783

Publisher: HarperCollins, 2011

Synopsis

Winner of the National Book Award, a Newbery Honor, and a #1 New York Times bestseller!

Inspired by the author's childhood experience as a refugee—fleeing Vietnam after the fall of Saigon and immigrating to Alabama—this coming-of-age debut told in verse has been celebrated for its touching child's-eye view of family and immigration.

This Harper Classic edition includes an author's note explaining how and why Thanhha Lai translated her personal experiences into this book, an interview with the author, an activity you can do with your family, tips on writing poetry, and discussion questions.

Hà has only ever known Saigon: the thrills of its markets, the joy of its traditions, and the warmth of her friends close by. But now the Vietnam War has reached her home. Hà and her family are forced to flee as Saigon falls, and they board a ship headed toward hope—toward America.

Inside Out and Back Again is the moving story of one girl's year of change, dreams, grief, and healing. This book was named to multiple state lists, received four starred reviews, and was hailed as a best book of the year by Publishers Weekly, Kirkus, School Library Journal, and the Chicago Public Library.

About this title

About the Author

Thanhhà Lại is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of the National Book Award and Newbery Honor–winning Inside Out and Back Again; the celebrated Listen, Slowly; the teen novel Butterfly Yellow; and the picture book Hundred Years of Happiness. She was born in Việt Nam and now lives in New York. 

From the Back Cover

No one would believe me but at times I would choose wartime in Saigon over peacetime in Alabama.

For all the ten years of her life, Hà has only known Saigon: the thrills of its markets, the joy of its traditions, the warmth of her friends close by . . . and the beauty of her very own papaya tree.

But now the Vietnam War has reached her home. Hà and her family are forced to flee as Saigon falls, and they board a ship headed toward hope. In America, Hà discovers the foreign world of Alabama: the coldness of its strangers, the dullness of its food, the strange shape of its landscape . . . and the strength of her very own family.

This is the moving story of one girl's year of change, dreams, grief, and healing as she journeys from one country to another, one life to the next.

Reviews

*Starred Review* After her father has been missing in action for nine years during the Vietnam War, 10-year-old Hà flees with her mother and three older brothers. Traveling first by boat, the family reaches a tent city in Guam, moves on to Florida, and is finally connected with sponsors in Alabama, where Hà finds refuge but also cruel rejection, especially from mean classmates. Based on Lai’s personal experience, this first novel captures a child-refugee’s struggle with rare honesty. Written in accessible, short free-verse poems, Hà’s immediate narrative describes her mistakes—both humorous and heartbreaking—with grammar, customs, and dress (she wears a flannel nightgown to school, for example); and readers will be moved by Hà’s sorrow as they recognize the anguish of being the outcast who spends lunchtime hiding in the bathroom. Eventually, Hà does get back at the sneering kids who bully her at school, and she finds help adjusting to her new life from a kind teacher who lost a son in Vietnam. The elemental details of Hà’s struggle dramatize a foreigner’s experience of alienation. And even as she begins to shape a new life, there is no easy comfort: her father is still gone. Grades 4-8. --Hazel Rochman

Edition details

• Publisher: HarperCollins
• Publication date: 2011
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0061962783
• ISBN 13: 9780061962783
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 272