Inside Out & Back Again by Thanhha Lai | Review

The Children’s Book Review | April 26, 2011

Inside Out & Back Again

by Thanhha Lai

Reading level: Ages 8-12

Hardcover: 272 pages

Publisher: HarperCollins (February 22, 2011)

Source: Publisher

Award: 2011 National Book Award for Young People’s Literature

What to expect: Vietnamese Americans, Emigration and immigration, Immigrants, Vietnam, Alabama

How much do we know about those around us? This is the question that debut novelist Thanhha Lai challenges her readers with.

Based on Lai’s own personal experience as a Vietnamese refugee, Inside Out & Back Again is a poignant story divided into four parts using a series of poems that chronicle the life of 10-year-old Hà, a child–refugee from Vietnam, during the year 1975—the Fall of Saigon. Along with her mother and three brothers (her father has been missing in action for nine years), Hà travels by boat to a tent city in Guam, is moved to Florida and then finds herself living in Alabama sponsored* by an “American cowboy” and his wife. In Alabama, the family are treated as outcasts and forced to integrate quickly through language, food, and religion, to be accepted as a part of the community.

Adjustments to Hà’s new life are delivered through smells and tastes and touch. In “Part One: Saigon,” a verse titled “Two More Papayas” gives Hà’s delectable description of her most cherished fruit. In “Part Three: Alabama,” a verse titled “Not the Same,” which is followed by “But Not Bad,” showcases the bitter differences between the comfort of her precious birth city and the emotional challenges of her new home in Alabama, combined with the acceptance of change.

Two More Papayas

“…Middle sweet
between a mango and a pear.

Soft as a yam
gliding down
after three easy,
thrilling chews.”

Not the Same

“Three pouches of papaya

dried papaya

Chewy

Sugary

Waxy

Sticky

Not the same

at all.

So mad,

I throw all in the trash.”

But Not Bad

“… I wake up at faint light,

guilt heavy on my chest.

I head toward the trash can.

Yet

on the dining table

on a plate

sit strips of papaya

gooey and damp,

having been soaked in hot water.

The sugar has melted off

leaving

plump

moist

chewy

bites.

Hummm …

Not the same,

but not bad

at all.”

Told with pure honesty, emotions run freely from verse to verse and page to page. Hà’s voice is clear, allowing readers to make a leap from sympathy to deep seeded empathy by experiencing her joy, pain, anger, frustration, loyalties, challenges, loss, and determination. The clarity of Hà’s self-awareness and development toward self-actualization is reminiscent of Susan Patron‘s character Lucky, also a 10-year-old girl, from the Newbery winner (2007) The Higher Power of Lucky (2006). Both characters suffer loss, make mistakes, struggle through emotional challenges, and, through sheer determination, intrinsically blossom.

Lai has created an emotionally powerful novel inspired by her own memories and each word is to be savored, pondered, experienced, and felt. Beautiful!

Add this book to your collection: Inside Out and Back Again by Thanhha Lai

If you have been moved by the Inside Out and Back Again book written by Thanhha Lai as much as us, take a look at the Newbery Medal winner and honor books that joined Inside Out and Back Again in 2012.