Based on the author’s life, Inside Out and Back Again is the story of a little girl, Hà, and her family as they become war refugees and flee Vietnam for the United States, settling in Alabama. It’s about her family’s grief over leaving their M.I.A. father behind. It’s about her older brothers and how they make their way in America. It’s about their mother and the sacrifices she makes for her children to succeed in America. Mostly, though, it’s Hà’s own personal story about how she misses her homeland, copes with a new language and a new school, makes new friends, deals with bullies, and finds her own way. I enjoy reading stories about the immigrant experience, and this one is perhaps even more poignant to me because of time period and the fact that it’s set in Alabama. (My father is a Vietnam veteran, so I relate somehow emotionally to the story more than I might if Hà were from some other place.)
Written in verse form, this novel gives little, succinct snapshots of what their lives are like. Here’s Hà’s description of her mother sewing the packs they will use to carry their belongings away from Saigon:
Hours later
the stitches appear
in slow motion,
the needle a worm
laying tiny eggs
that sink into brown cloth.
The tired worm
reproduces much more slowly
at the end of the day
than at the beginning
when Mother started
the first of five bags. (52-53)
And on her mother’s sacrifice:
Who can go against
a mother
who has become gaunt like bark
from raising four children alone? (54)
On going to a school self-segregated by skin color:
Both laughing, chewing,
as if it never occurred
to them
someone medium
would show up. (143)
On losing one’s identity:
I wish
Father would appear
in my class
speaking beautiful English
as he does French and Chinese
and hold out his hand for mine.
Mostly
I wish
I were
still
smart. (158-59)
And one more, perhaps the most poignant of all:
No one believes me
but at times
I would choose
wartime in Saigon
over
peacetime in Alabama. (195)
Thanhha Lai has written a beautiful and touching story in Inside Out and Back Again that rattled my own safe little world. I will definitely read this book with my children when they’re a little older. Highly, Highly Recommended. (Harper, 2011)
Other books that came to mind while I was reading this one are A Step from Heaven by An Na and Betti on the High Wire by Lisa Railsback (both linked to my reviews) because of their sensitive and thoughtful protrayals of the immigrant experience.
As a side note, I think said something like this almost every review I’ve written of books written in verse form with a statement that goes something like this: “I don’t usually like novels written in verse form. . . “ I need to change that; I must like them better than I think I do. In this case, though, I think it works particularly well. Here are a couple more books in this format that I’ve reviewed:
Do you like novels in verse?
I’m adding this book review to this month’s Award Winning Books database at Gathering Books. 
My girls were quite taken in by this story and usually begged for just one more chapter each time our read-aloud session came to an end. They also drew several comparisons between it and another Newbery winner, 
Another Medieval read-aloud we have shared in the past few weeks is Castle by David Macaulay. Winner of a 1978 Caldecott honor, Castle is the fictional tale of the building of a castle in Wales. More informational than plot-driven, this black-and-white picture book gives a detailed description of how the castle is built from below ground and up. Obviously, David Macaulay‘s line drawings are amazing. I honestly think this one might best be read individually so that the reader can sit and soak up the description, flip back to the glossary to learn the meaning of a technical term or two, and study the drawings. As it was we read it over several days, stopping when I felt my brain couldn’t take any more description (or the DLM demanded my attention, or both). I do not visualize things easily, so perhaps I am playing to my own weakness here; Louise actually recognized the word portcullis (and not just the word, but what it
alphabet book. It just looks like something she’ll like. 
by Sandra Boynton, one of the few Sandra Boynton board books we don’t have.
by Laurel Long. I saw this one and couldn’t resist because Lulu played part of “The Twelve Days of Christmas” at her piano recital last week, so it is a popular tune around these parts lately. I think it’s something of an “I Spy” type book, too, so I’m eager to read this one with the girls.
by Dandi Daley McCall. Someone cited this one as 
by Liz Garton Scanlon. This one won a Caldecott honor in 2010 for its illustrations by Marla Frazee, and I loved it the first time I read it. 
by Allen Say. I am as fascinated by the visual artistic process as I am the written artistic process, so reading Allen Say’s biographical graphic novel (?) should be very interesting and entertaining. It’s a Cybils nominee, and 
Ingrid Law’s Savvy is a 2009 Newbery honor book, and it’s one that I passed over several times before bringing it home from the library to read. For some reason, the cover was unappealing to me–to me it looks magical or sci-fi-ey or something else I have to be in just the right mood to read. Of course, if I’d had any idea how much I’d like this little book, I would’ve picked it up long ago. 
Sterling North’s story of one year in his life as an eleven year old boy, the adoptive (by turns) parent, brother, and friend of an orphaned raccoon named Rascal. Sterling is the youngest child of a kind but neglectful widowed father. Sterling’s older sisters come back home at times and demand that something be done to about the lack of housekeeping, etc., but Sterling is generally left blissfully alone to raise his raccoon and build his canoe in the parlor. Life with Rascal is as exciting as one could expect–Rascal gets in trouble with the neighbors when he raids their gardens, and he is accused of being a rabid ‘coon when he protects himself from the school bully. Between these brushes with civilization, though, this book is a love song North wrote to an idyllic boyhood spent in the forests of Wisconsin. There are long descriptive passages of the forests and lakes that Sterling and Rascal explore together. Although these descriptive passages make the reading aloud part difficult (or perhaps I should say the reading and listening part difficult!), they are the parts I like best about the story. Here’s a little excerpt from a chapter in which Sterling, his father, and Rascal spend a couple of weeks together camping in the woods:
by Margi Preus, I have now read every 
by Rhoda Blumberg, home from the library at least twice, but I still haven’t managed to read it. Has anyone read this one and reviewed it? I’d love to know what you think about it!
