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4.17 AVERAGE
4.17 AVERAGE
emotional
reflective
sad
slow-paced
emotional
hopeful
inspiring
reflective
sad
medium-paced
emotional
informative
sad
fast-paced
I had the pleasure of meeting this author a couple of months ago at our annual statewide school librarian convention. First of all, I have to stop and say that she is the cutest and most delightful person. I met her during an author meet and greet during which I was feeling super awkward, and she was just so approachable and kind. She mentioned to me that she had a Middle Grade memoir-in-verse publishing this fall about her experiences as an American immigrant from Vietnam in the 90s and I was all WHERE CAN I GET AN ARC I NEED TO READ THIS IMMEDIATELY (again, super awkward)! Luckily I was able to request it online and got approved!
I read The Women earlier this year, and one of the many things I took away from that book is that I know so little about Vietnam, not only regarding the war but also its people and culture, and I wanted to learn more. To get to dive into this topic with my favorite novel format just felt like such a treat - and it absolutely was. I LOVED this book. The story itself is fascinating and heart wrenching - both learning about what life was like in Vietnam after the war and also about their immigration process and how difficult it was to acclimate to American culture (and how the kids she went to school with were horrible jerks, but I digress).
One thing I found especially clever about this book was the framework of an older sister compiling her memories so that her younger sister wouldn’t forget their family history. While that particular storyline wasn’t actually autobiographical, I thought it was a brilliant way to seamlessly change from the past to the present in the story.
I’m preordering two copies of this book - one for my home and another for my school library, and I would absolutely encourage others to do the same!