Little Brother - Softcover

Baillie, Allan

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0140368620 ISBN 13: 9780140368628

Publisher: Puffin, 1994

Synopsis

In Cambodia after the Vietnamese War, Vithy learns to overcome social upheaval, a hostile jungle, and his own inability to trust, in order to rescue his older brother

About this title

About the Author

Since the publication of his first novel, Adrift, in 1983, Allan Baillie has become one of Australia's most important writers for children.

On leaving school, Allan worked as a journalist and travelled extensively. Many of his books draw upon this background and give his readers invaluable insights into world politics, with a particular focus on Asia.

Allan Baillie's novels, which include Little Brother (1986), The China Coin (1992) and Saving Abbie (2000), have won him acclaim, awards and international recognition. He is also the author of several highly successful picture books, including Drac and the Gremlin (1989). His books have found success in Japan, Sweden, Holland, Germany, France, Spain, England, the United States, New Zealand and South Africa.

Allan now lives in Sydney with his wife and they have two children. He writes full time.

From School Library Journal

Grade 5-8-- Brothers Mang and Vithy, having escaped the Khmer Rouge, are being pursued through the Cambodian jungle. When the younger boy sprains his ankle, Mang leads their recent captors away from him. A single shot rings out and he does not return. Vithy, about 11, now sets out to accomplish the brothers' original plan of escaping to the Thai border, hoping to be reunited with Mang. The story is set at the beginning of the Vietnamese invasion, so there is danger of being caught in the crossfire, but also room for kindness from strangers as the Vietnamese have liberated much of the countryside from the vise of the Khmer Rouge. There are also well-integrated vignettes of earlier, happier times as Vithy recalls his life with his parents and little sister, all since murdered. The highly believable plot leads the boy to his goal and a refugee hospital, where an Australian doctor befriends him and engineers his resettlement with her in Sydney. The novel is well written and realistically developed, Vithy being so nicely drawn in varying emotions that one suspects that he is based on a real person. No heavy-handed theme dominates the text, yet it conveys a chilling glimpse of what many Cambodian children have had to endure. A dozen or so line drawings of negligible quality add nothing to the text. This excellent tale of courage and survival lends real life flesh to textbook facts and will be welcomed in most collections. It should be mandatory reading for anyone working with Southeast Asian youth. --John Philbrook, San Francisco Public Library
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: Puffin
• Publication date: 1994
• ISBN 10: 0140368620
• ISBN 13: 9780140368628
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 144