Inside Out and Back Again

I really enjoy reading the book. It brought back a lot of memories of all the good and bad time growing up. The author is very good at putting her emotion into words that we can all relate to.
This is a must for your book collection.

I recently bought this book and I read page of it. I thought it was okay. My book club discussed this book and it had goo reviews. I haven't read this book but several of my friends recommend it to me. I would recommend this book.

I have been reading children's books for years and the summary of this one sounded so good. Serious story, strange read. Not bad for a middle school child trying to learn what it is like to flee your home and move to another country where everyone treats you differently. But even that age group might like something with a little more meat.

I'm writing in reference to the Inside Out.. book with the shadow of the girl leaning out from the papaya tree. FIRST, the book is excellent. A lot of poetic devices even with the free verse, a lot of deep inference practice with students if you read with young people. BUT I ordered 14 of these books, and 5 of them are missing pages or have scrambled up pages - all beginning at the same page. The publisher needs to check quality control. Your odds are getting a book that is just fine, but you may get one with missing chunks of missing pages.

INSIDE OUT AND BACK AGAIN is a beautiful novel-in-verse about a young girl who flees Vietnam as Saigon is falling and makes a new home with her mother and brothers in Alabama. Based on the author's own experiences as a child immigrant, the poems are spare and lovely, and they manage to capture both the sense of wonder and the feeling of isolation of a newcomer in a world where everything seems different. As a teacher, one thing I found especially interesting and heartbreaking was Ha's feeling of suddenly not being smart any more when she enrolled in her new school in America - such a common experience for gifted kids who encounter a language and culture barrier in a new home.

I really enjoyed this book and think readers in grades 4-7 will love it, too. It'd be great as a classroom read-aloud or for literature circles. Consider recommending it along with CRACKER: THE BEST DOG IN VIETNAM by Cynthia Kadohata and ALL THE BROKEN PIECES, an equally beautiful novel in verse by Ann Burg,as a way to explore Vietnam from different perspectives. It would also be fantastic paired with Katherine Applegate's HOME OF THE BRAVE, which is also an immigrant story in verse, from the point of view of a boy from Africa. Both books are short and poignant, and readers will come away with a much better understanding of what it feels like to land in a strange, new world and try to make that place home.

I love narrative poetry, and this book was no exception. At the height of the Vietnam War, 10 year-old Kim Ha is forced to leave Saigon with her mother and older brothers. Her father has been missing for several years, and the family continually hopes for his return. The decision to leave is heartwrenching, knowing that if they go, there will be no real way for their father to find them again, if indeed, he is still alive. Ha's mother gives her children the option of saving one thing... everything else must be destroyed, so as not to leave any evidence behind for the invading soldiers.

Once aboard the ship, the family suffers from extremely close quarters and lack of food. The boat captain's unlucky snap judgement on the best escape route means that their journey is drawn out much longer than they had anticipated, necessitating rationing. People grow ruthless and hoard what little food they have. The ship is rescued by Americans, and the families make their way to the States. Salvation? Hardly. Ha and her family end up in Alabama in the early-70's, with racial tensions at an all time high. After everything she's been through, Ha must endure appallingly racist bullies at school, as well as condescending teachers, who don't understand that just because she hasn't learned English perfectly yet, that doesn't mean that she isn't a bright and extremely observant girl. Ha is desperately homesick and finds heavily-processed American food disgusting compared to the fresh papayas and traditional Vietnamese fare that she is used to.

At this point, I really began to wish for some sort of break from the unrelenting sadness of the story - whether by comic relief, or a sympathetic character to lighten the tension. I had hoped that Ha's neighbor, Miss Washington would fill the bill, but even though she's kindly and means well, ultimately she comes across as a dotty old lady who doesn't quite get it.

A semi-autobiographical story, this book is simultaneously difficult to read, and very accessible. The four "chapters" it's broken into: Saigon, At Sea, Alabama, and From Now On, neatly break up the action. The emotional turmoil that Ha goes through makes this book quite challenging indeed, but the words flow so smoothly it's hard not to get drawn in to the tale. The writing was wonderfully crafted and made reading about the immigrant experience completely compelling. As powerful, arresting and in some ways just as sad as The Bridge to Terabithia, Inside Out and Back Again could definitely be a Newbery contender.

Written in verse, this book follows Hà, a young Vietnamese girl, through one year during the time of the Vietnam War. It is based on a true story of the author, Thanhha Lai, when she immigrated to Alabama from Vietnam. If read carefully, this book has a lot of deeper meaning to it than the words can simply tell you. It is full of culture. This book is really short and I recommend you read it in one sitting to get the most meaning from it.

Hà lives with her mother and three older brothers while their father fights in the war. They are a poor family living in a desperate situation, and you really get to see this through Hà's descriptions of food and her town and people. The war threatens Hà and her family to flee their home and board a ship in hope of a better life.

Hà said they were a poor family and each had only one pair of shoes. I have an aunt that is from Vietnam, and she told me a story of her childhood when her whole family had only one pair of shoes to share between all of them. I understand that this novel is based on the author's own experience, but her family must have not been as poor as others. It's interesting to me to compare these two experiences of life in Vietnam.

Being written in free verse really adds to the story. It helps you see inside the mind of ten-year-old Hà with her quick, sharp thoughts. I don't think there was any better way this story could have been told.

This book was recommended to me by a 10 yr old girl at my school who read the book and fell in love with the story of a 10 yr old immigrant girl from Saigon. I could really identify with this book as it is similar to my experience growing up in California in the 1970's. We had a lot of immigrants from all over the world and we did not know how to communicate with them. I was a loud, boisterous, tall american girl who tried to make friends with many of the quieter kids and it is only through reading this story of Ha and her journey that I can see how I probably scared these kids to death! I could not understand them or how their lives had been so affected by the change of lifestyle, food, language and the fast pace of life we take for granted. Working in an elementary school for the past 5 years I see many kids who are immigrants and I am always careful to moderate my tone, smile and be as gentle as possible because I can see how fearful they are to their strange new environment. I wish I knew then what I know now. If I could go back and be a more helpful and caring person, I would. Some lessons take a life time to learn.

This book is beautiful. I thought I would be a crying mess the entire time I read it, but thankfully it wasn't overly sad- despite the context. Ha is a young girl who paints a picture for us of what it was like living in South Vietnam during the war. While there is definitely danger, and money is tight and times hard are everywhere- she explains that she loved her life, her house, her papaya tree. Her family is able to escape after the country fell on a navy ship that is picked up by Americans. Her family is eventually sponsored (allowed to leave the refugee camp)and moves to Alabama, where they are all forced to start over, learn a new language and deal with a vastly different culture that is sometimes hostile and sometimes generous.

What I liked the most about this book is that Ha is not overly optimistic about all that has happened. Shes upset, mad, and scared. Her family helps each member through it, but it isn't easy. In fact, at one point, she says she would rather live in war torn Vietnam than in peaceful Alabama. She struggles with feeling stupid when she used to feel smart back at home. I loved when her teacher (whose son died in the Vietnam war) bonds with Ha and begins to protect and help her. I love that Ha is still just a child and has to learn to deal with her anger, stubbornness and even fear of school bullies... all feelings which every single person can identify with. I have never read a book written in prose before, but I loved this one.

"I count up to twenty.
The class claps
On its own.

I'm furious,
Unable to explain
I already learned
Fractions
And how to purify
River water.

So this is
What dumb
Feels like.

I hate, hate, hate it." (P. 157)

This was a very interesting read. Told completely through verse, it tells such a complete story that I was very impressed and surprised at how much I enjoyed it.

This book tells the story of Ha, a little girl, who found herself immigrating to the United States with her family after the fall of Saigon. It is a story about holding on to your past, your home, your family, and struggling to move forward into the future.

It is a story that tells the difficult journey of leaving a place you are so attached with to finding a new home in Alabama, learning a new language, making new friends, eating food you are not familiar with and having a new life.

It was very heartfelt and very profound, and the fact that it is based on the author's experiences makes it all the more real. I enjoyed it a lot more than I expected to.

Acceptance Doesn't Mean Giving Up
Although, the book Inside Out and Back Again, by Thanhha Lai, looks as if it is a book of poems, it has all the essential elements of a novel. The necessary elements for a novel are characters, a setting, a plot, and a theme and this novel definitely has them. Not only that, it has a traditional story arc, which always contains a recognizable beginning, middle, and end. Finally, Inside Out and Back Again has chapters, just like a novel would. Every novel needs characters and a setting. Some characters in this novel are Ha, her family, Pink Face, Steven, Pam, The Cowboy, Mrs. Washington, and the other kids in Ha's school. Ha is the protagonist, and Pink Face is the antagonist. This novel also has a setting; as a matter of fact it has several. A few of them are Saigon, Guam, Florida, and Alabama. Since the chapters identify where the next setting will be, they are especially important in this novel. As the story unfolds, Ha is moving to the U.S.A, because she was fleeing her home, which is Saigon, Vietnam in a small boat. Escaping in a tiny boat was dangerous, especially during war time. Further evidence of a plot in this novel may be found when Ha is challenged by the issues of life in a new school and the problems she has to learn how to face, like when the kids in her school chase her and then Pink Face pulls her hair, the first time he ever assaulted her with anything except his words.
Every novel has a theme, and this "Collection of Poems" has one, too. A theme is very important because that is pretty what Ha needs to learn. For example, when Ha has gotten dried papaya as a present, but she doesn't like it because it wasn't the same as the papaya in Saigon, so she just threw it away. When she wakes up the next morning, she feels guilty, and then she finds the dried papaya on the table. Ha tries it, and she thinks, "Not the same, but not bad at all" (pg 234). The theme in this novel is introduced when Ha starts being bullied in school. At first she expected that people would change for her. But, they didn't.
During this time she has a few choices on what to do; she could do nothing, she could ask for help, she could fight back, or she could accept her new home and adapt to it. She first chose to do nothing and ignored it. Ha was too proud to ask for help, but her friend Mrs. Washington knew how Ha felt, so she helped her without being asked. Later, when Pink Face pulled her hair, Ha couldn't take it anymore and fought back. She felt powerful for the first time.
Inside out and Back Again has the necessary elements that every novel needs. This novel has a story arc, because it has an exposition, rising action, conflict, climax, falling action, and resolution. Every novel needs chapters and this one does and in this novel they are extremely important. It is common for people to have expectations about how things should look. If people think something looks different from what they expected, they feel something is wrong with it. Just because it doesn't look like a novel doesn't mean it isn't one. Just because a dried papaya doesn't look or taste like a papaya from home, doesn't mean it isn't one. This is when Ha learns that just because her new home doesn't look like Saigon, doesn't mean she can't make it one. If she chooses to.

Having been born in the '80s, I'm too young to remember the United States' involvement in the Vietnam War. I've heard the songs, seen movies, and read books about it, but I know I will never be able to fully understand what both Americans and Vietnamese went through during that turbulent, controversial time. I can, however, understand some of it through the above media... though sadly, much of said media is from the American point of view, regarding the soldiers who fought there and their families back home. Until now I haven't read a book from the Vietnamese point of view... and if the war was difficult for our soldiers, it was agonizing for those whose lives were directly affected by the fighting and who saw their homeland torn apart and their lives destroyed.

"Inside Out and Back Again" is a relatively short book, told in gentle verse rather than prose. But it does an effective -- and fantastic -- job of capturing the terror and heartbreak, but also the joy and wonder, of a young girl struggling with change.

Ha is a young girl living in South Vietnam with her mother and three brothers during the war, trying to cling to some measure of normalcy even as the family's finances are stretched tight and the war draws ever closer. She longs for her father, who vanished during the fighting, and hopes for peace... but when the war strikes too close to home, the family flees aboard a ship and takes refuge in the United States. But Alabama in the '70s is a rough place for a family of refugees, and despite the kindness of their American sponsor, the entire family finds themselves subject to prejudice and hatred. Even young Ha finds herself angry and longing to return home despite the war. But kindness exists in the most unlikely of places, and with the help of a patient tutor and her Bruce-Lee-obsessed older brother, Ha may find her own measure of happiness in this strange new land.

Despite being nearly 300 pages long, this is a book told in snippets of poetic (but not rhyming) verse, and so is a quick read -- I was done with it in a couple of hours. But that makes it no less powerful. The verse-style storytelling means that the author is able to capture individual moments with startling clarity, like flies trapped in amber, without a lot of padding or unnecessary fluff. Ha's voice is still childlike and simple, but with a sense of tragedy and wisdom that one often sees in children who have gone through great turmoil, and her story broke my heart... but also reassured me that despite tragedy, there are good people in the world if one knows where to look.

I came to love Ha's family -- her sad but resourceful mother who makes the best of a bad situation, and her brothers who cling to their obsessions -- animals, engines, Bruce Lee -- as a way to cope with the turbulence in their lives. Most of the American characters are fairly flat, simply there to fulfill their obligatory roles as bully, teacher, sponsor, etc., but through them we also see flashes of the kindness and cruelty that immigrants often face when trying to build a new life. The strongest of these characters is Mrs. Washington, a neighbor who tutors Ha in English despite having suffered a tragedy of her own in her life.

While aimed at children and young teens, "Inside Out and Back Again" is a must-read for adults as well. It's a crystal-clear and emotional look at how the Vietnam War affected the most innocent lives, and how one family struggles to build a new life in an unfamiliar land.

This story is powerful and moving, filled with moments both small and stunning, poignant and visceral. It's poetic and beautiful language earn the use of verse and it conveys the experience of the protagonist, Há, as she moves from being a child growing up in war-torn Saigon to being a refugee to an immigrant. Her struggle with learning the language is at times heart wrenching and at others phrased in such a way as to be funny ("Whoever invented English/Should have learned/How to spell") and is always relatable. Working with kids who are still figuring out how spelling works in English, I feel like they would find such moments especially relatable and perhaps also enlightening.

This is definitely a book I'll be recommending every chance I get, and one I'll be getting for my nieces. It's beautiful and moving and funny and intense in all the right ways, without ever getting overwhelming about it.

This loosely autobiographical middle grade masterpiece ranks right up there with Persepolis: The Story of a Childhood; Sold; A Long Walk to Water; and The One and Only Ivan. Like the aforementioned stories, Inside Out & Back Again offers readers an opportunity to live another's real life experiences in different skin in different cultures and different parts of the world. And these stories aren't your run of the mill grind--but encounters with tribulation, hope, and survival. And, like Sold and The One and Only Ivan, the experiences are delivered through intimate first person, present tense verse.

War leaves Thannha Lai's ten-year-old protagonist, Hà, and her three older brothers fatherless. Through Hà, Thannha brings us into parts of her own world as a citizen of Saigon, then a boat refugee, and an immigrant to Guam, Florida, and Alabama. In her homeland Hà feels smart, secure, and fearless. In America Hà feels dumb, lonely, and afraid.

Her discoveries made me laugh out loud:
". . .

I look up

Jane: not listed

sees: to eyeball something

Spot: a stain

run: to move really fast

Meaning: ______ eyeballs stain move."

And clutch my chair:

". . . Everyone knows the ship
could sink,
unable to hold
the piles of bodies
that keep crawling on
like raging ants
from a disrupted nest."

And cry:

". . . What if
father is really gone?

From the sad look
on their faces
I know
despite their brave guesses
They have begun to accept
what I said on a whim."

Capturing such a comprehensive, novel in so few words is an exceptional feat. Many people live harrowing lives that will go unnoticed. Cultures and parts of the world will go unshared. But thanks to the talent and dedication of author Thanhha Lai, we can experience a taste of her life--as one smart, young, female Vietnamese survivor, because she's discovered the perfect formula for translation.

If you like Inside Out & Back Again, you'll also love Thanhha's newest New York Times sensation, Listen, Slowly.

~ Anna

Book Review-Inside Out and Back Again-Thanhha Lai
This review written by an 8th grade student
Washington Irving MS - Roslindale MA

In this story, a character named Ha and her family experience something terrible and sad but they try not to let that determine how they live their lives. When Ha realized she had to flee from her country (Vietnam) to America she was upset that she had to leave her home and her beloved papaya tree. First they got on a boat to get to a safe place so a few weeks later they made it to Guam. Then their family was adopted and they went to the United States. When they got to America they met her "cowboy" and got a home but Ha was struggling in school because she was having a hard time learning English and getting along with the other kids in her class because everyone there was white and she was the only Asian in her class.

I had mixed feelings about this book. Don't get me wrong, the plot and the story line of the book were amazing but there were some things I disliked about the book. Some things that I liked about the book are like how Thanhha Lai expressed all of the things that Ha was feeling and where she was.
example:

I'm mad and pinch the girl
who shares my desk.
Tram is half my size,
so skinny and nervous.

I also liked that the character Ha was so brave for going through all the struggles she went through. For example, she had to flee from her country, she had to learn English and she had to make new friends at her new home and neighborhood.

On the other hand I did not care for the way the book was written, it was written in free verse. I am used to a biography being written in traditional form.

I would recommend this book to teens who are interested in books about the Vietnam War.

Inside Out And Back Again was written in February 2011, it's historical fiction. It’s a story about a young girl named Ha and her family being forced to move to the United States because the Vietnam War had reached their home and it was no longer safe. What I liked about this book was that it appears to be simple to read being written in free verse poetry so it was a quicker read for me. I don’t tend to read books all the time. What I like about Ha is that she has a feisty side to her and she’s not the one to just sit back and let things slide. I would recommend this book because it’s not boring and it shows about how a 10 year old girl forced to flee her home in Saigon and built a new life in the United States.

We read this book, Inside Out and Back Again, and the genre is poetry/realistic fiction.
It’s about a little girl, her name is Ha. She is 10 years old, she is patient and competitive, thoughtful and caring. She grew up in Vietnam but she had to leave because there was a war going on. She got on a boat that took her to Guam where she and her family waited to get a sponsor. A “Cowboy” took them to his house but Ha’s family looked at the cowboy’s wife and Ha and her family packed up because they didn’t like her because she was disrespectful. When Ha went to school the kids were picking on her because she looked different. Ha was being picked on by this boy, who she called Pink Boy.

I would recommend this book to everyone because it talks about the Vietnam War and people fleeing from Vietnam and starting a new life in America. I recommend this book to everyone because it talks about a little girl who was so brave.

My class just finished reading Inside Out and Back Again by Thanhha Lai. The book was published in 2011. The book is about how a native Vietnamese girl who had a war going on in her country. She and her family want to get out due to the war they have to try to get out of their country and to America. Two of her brothers don't want to leave their homeland because of some soldiers. Their uncle came to visit them to make an escape route just in case Vietnamese soldiers run into their house. He said to go through the back door and run down the alley to the boat to take them to America.

So a couple weeks later they decided to leave and they went on the boat. They were on the boat for 3 weeks and eventually ran out of food so they had to ask the captain for some more food. The captain lied and said that they had no food but a week later he gave the ship some food. Then they got saved by an American ship that took them in and gave them some food. Later that week they landed in Guam to get a sponsor to let them inside the country. But to get a sponsor they had to change their religion to Christian. A couple days later they get a sponsor to go to Alabama. Ha’s family was nervous around the sponsor’s wife. Ha went to school, Mama stayed home, brother Khoi had a job and brother Vu went to school. Ha was getting bullied because of how she looked (Asian).
In my opinion this book can teach you how it was for a little kid growing up during the Vietnam War. This book can help you escape your reality.

In this story written in a series of free verse poems, debut novelist Thanhha Lai spins a moving and compelling tale of a young Vietnamese girl who moves with her family from war-torn Saigon to Alabama in 1975, at the end of the Vietnam war. When the book opens, Hà and her family are celebrating Tet, the Vietnamese New Year. She lives with her three older brothers and her mother; she can't remember her father, a navy officer, who was captured by the enemy years before, and no one knows if he is even still alive.

As the war approaches Saigon, Hà and her family must prepare to leave, packing just a few belongings with them. A particularly poignant poem itemizes what they must leave behind, including "Brother Quang's/report cards,/each ranking him first in class,/beginning in kindergarten..." Hà must leave her beloved papaya tree, where the fruit is still not ripe. Author Lai does a wonderful job of evoking the sights, smells and sounds of Vietnam for the American reader.

Their voyage by ship is dangerous and miserable, with not enough food, water, lights, or bathroom facilities. When they finally reach the open sea, they are rescued by an American ship, which tows them to a refugee camp in Guam. Where will they go from there? They choose America, where Hà 's mother believes there will be opportunities for her children to go to college. But first they must be sponsored by an American family. Finally a "cowboy" rescues them, and they go off to Alabama.

It's almost impossible to imagine how foreign Alabama must have been for these Vietnamese immigrants, until we read "American Chicken." In this poem, Hà explains how their cowboy brings them "a paper bucket of chicken/skin crispy and golden,/smelling of perfection/..." But when they taste the meat, her mother spits it out, and her brother gags; "Brother Quang forces/a swallow/before explaining/we are used to/fresh-killed chicken/that roamed the yard/snacking on/grains and worms/...I bite down on a thigh;/might as well bite down on/bread soaked in water./ Still,/I force yum-yum sounds."

For Hà , it's a world of "clean, quiet loneliness." And living on the charity of others isn't easy for Hà and her family, who were used to a nice standard of living in Saigon. Hà is befuddled by the idiosyncrasies of the English language, remarking that "whoever invented English should be bitten by a snake." Her classmates make fun of her, and she hates feeling dumb, having to learn ABC's and numbers when in her own country she knew fractions and was the smartest in her class. It's hard not to wish to be invisible in this strange new place.

However, some Americans are kind to Hà and her family; a neighbor tutors them all in English, their "cowboy" brings them gifts of chips and chocolate, and her teacher lets her eat lunch in her classroom to avoid the misery of the cafeteria and the tyranny of bullies. Will Hà succeed in building a new life for herself in this new country?

Although she comes from a background foreign to most of us, readers will nonetheless identify with Hà's spunky character, her squabbles with her brothers, and her difficulties fitting into her new life. This novel is already getting some early Newbery buzz, and it's definitely one to put on your to-read list.

This was compassionate and thought-provoking. The emotional turmoil that Ha went through was tragic, yet the story was engaging with a good balance of heartache and humor. Overall it felt uplifting and triumphant. I was effortlessly drawn into the tale.

The author wrote Ha’s voice “in quick, sharp phrases that captured her feelings in crisp images.” It was extremely effective. I was taken by surprise the way it made reading about the immigrant experience completely compelling. It flowed so smoothly. It helped that Ha was a spirited girl. I kept thinking “I love this girl” every time she had a feisty thought or reaction. “But last night I pouted when mother insisted one of my brothers must rise first this morning to bless our house because only male feet can bring luck.” I could visualize her making a disgruntled face. “I decided to wake before dawn and tap my big toe to the tile floor first.” Like I said, love her!

She had three older protective brothers. They sacrificed for each other and I admired the compassion they showed for their mother. Their father had been missing in action for 9 years yet their mother was still faithful and hopeful for his return. Even as they fled for their lives during the Vietnam War they were concerned their father may return to find his family gone. Pictures were burned to prevent the soldiers from finding evidence of his life. Their mother gave them a choice to bring one thing with them. I cannot imagine having to do something like that, leaving everything you know and love. At sea they lived off of rations of rice and water heading for the unknown. They were without a doubt a resilient family: “We pretend the monsoon has come early. In the distance bombs explode like thunder, slashes lighten the sky, gunfire falls like rain.”

I enjoyed learning about the Vietnamese culture and some of its traditions such as Tet. It is their New Year’s which also doubles as everyone’s birthday. Ha’s love for her simple life—including her papaya tree—was endearing. She missed it. The shock of canned food tasting like “salty vomit” would have made me all the more miserable. This little ten year old girl tried to be grateful the best she could. She had to adjust to a foreign culture with its traditions and was easily disoriented while learning a new language. The author painted a vivid picture of how she felt dumb when in fact she was a bright girl.

One last amusing excerpt: (bickering back-and-forth between Ha and her mother)
Mother: “…you will eat lunch at school with friends” Ha: “What friends?” “You’ll make some” “What if I can’t?” “You will.” “What will I eat?” “What your friends eat?” “But what will I eat?” “Be surprised.” “I hate surprises.” “Be agreeable.”Not without knowing what I’m agreeing to.” Mother sighs, walking away.

Written in verse, Ha tells us what it is like to be a refuge from Vietnam. Her father is a Navy MIA soldier and as the youngest daughter of the family, you can feel the fear and the honesty in the words and the actions as Ha adjusts to the situations around her. Traveling by boat, the situation at sea is tense as the rations are cut back and individuals are told to sit to conserve their energy. The sight of land rises hope in everyone and when their feet arrive on dry ground, the family immediately starts to help others in the tent city. The tent city, such a change from what they expected and what they came from but the sights and the sounds are better than what they experienced on the ship. America, it is the city the family is destined for and their adjustment to this new opportunity is more than they expected. Their visions and expectations are based on what they knew and what they have been told and I hoped the best for them, as their journey already has been long. Mother feels America will provide what the family needs and as the family tries to adjust, I was laughing. Laughing, not at them but for the things that Ha said as she adjusted and tried to understand the world around, for sometimes the world does not make sense, it just is. Things are just the way they are for no other reason but only for the reason that is how they have been done forever.

The author, in her biographical blurb, tells us that she worked for years trying to write a huge history of Viet Nam, finally setting the project aside to produce this little jewel. Using short free-verse poems, she tells the story of a young Vietnamese girl who escapes from war-torn Saigon with her mother and three brothers and ends up in Alabama, all in the year 1975. The poems are wonderful, moving us from day to day through the year, giving an insightful picture of what it is like to be refugees in a culture completely different from the one the family leaves. Being a poet myself, I loved this book.

Ha has lived in Saigon for all of her life, though things have been different, especially recently. Her dad has been gone most of her ten years, and she worries that she will never see him again. But she has to be brave, and she has to have hope. When the Vietnam War hits Saigon, it's time for Ha, her mother, and her brothers to move somewhere safe. Taking only one item each, they travel by boat far away from the only home Ha has ever known. The journey isn’t easy, and it's the worst experience of her young life. When the boat has finally reached safety, Ha is still not at her final destination. More moving and adjusting will take place before her family is sponsored, and they move to a state called Alabama. Now she needs to try to fit in, only she doesn’t speak the language, and many people already think they know who she is and what she is about. What will Ha’s life be like in America? Will she find friends and be accepted? Is her family ever going to see father again? What would you pick if you could only take one item from your home? You must follow along with Ha on her journey to find out what happens!

Inside Out and Back Again by Thanhha Lai is based on the author’s experience leaving Vietnam as a young girl. The story is told in verse. I had never read a chapter book written in verse, and I was concerned that I might not like it. This was not the case! Ha’s emotions came through in beautiful stanzas. The short chapters and text made it easy for me to read a huge chunk of the book at once, and then to read parts when I only had a little time. Ha’s relationship with her siblings was easy to relate to, and I liked reading her perspective on the life changing journey. I would definitely recommend this book to fourth through eighth graders. I think many adults would learn a lot from seeing the world through Ha’s eyes. I enjoyed the historical aspects of the book, and I think it would help a lot of kids to see what life is like for someone during wartime, and why peace is so important. I look forward to reading another book by this author.

I don't normally read poetry, but Inside Out & Back Again really pulled at me. The story of a family escaping wartime Vietnam and finding their way to the U.S., and not necessarily enjoying the "land of opportunity" was so touching and easy to empathize with. The struggles of understanding a different culture, the mistakes made by those who tried to make the transition easier, and the difficulty of crossing the language barrier were very tactile and real. It's an important addition to any library.

This book captivated me with its beauty and honesty. It's the diary of a young Vietnamese girl named Ha, told in a series of poignant narrative poems. Her journey takes her from war-torn but beloved Saigon, onto a crowded refugee ship, and finally to her bewildering new home of Alabama. Clashing cultures is a understatement for what Ha experiences. Her story is beautiful, personal, honest, funny, and compelling.

I left this book with a renewed sense of compassion and understanding for those around me. Ha doesn't just teach us about life during the Vietnam War. She shows us a familiar world through new eyes: how fried chicken can be unpalatable, how the English language can be immensely confusing, how well-meant charity can be difficult to live with. We feel her frustration and difficulty in fitting into a school that is already divided along white-and-black racial lines and doesn't seem to have a place for someone who fits with neither. We enter into her family's interactions, as they struggle alongside one another in the newness. We rejoice in the occasional moments of warmth and understanding she finds around her.

Told as an easily read poem, this is the story of Ha` and of her family's harrowing escape to a refugee camp after the fall of Saigon. Just ten, her father MIA, she soon finds herself, with her older brothers and her mother, a stranger in a very strange land - Alabama. Here, struggling with the new language, her color--neither "black" nor "white"--she is taunted, chased and mocked. Here, eggs and bricks are thrown at her house. Here, her family discovers that it is safer be baptized at their big-hearted sponsor's evangelical church than to admit they are Buddhists. So far, this sounds pretty grim, not the usual 8-12 year old fare, but I was entirely enthralled by Ha`'s story. Her insights about her new country and the people in it are witty, out-of-the-mouths-of-babes spot on, all while remaining utterly true to the heart and mind of her age group. Funny, heart-breaking, uplifting, melancholy, joyous--it's all in here. I highly recommend this book. It should be read in schools, placed in libraries, and used by Sunday School teachers, too.
* Review first appeared in The Historical Novel Society magazine

In Saigon, a father and sailor goes off to work on his motorbike and never returns. The mother is left abandoned with her sons and youngest daughter to survive. From afar, bombs are exploding in the fields, while on the city streets, sweets sell at road side stands. As the war worsens and moves closer to home, the family prepares for their departure from the homeland.

They travel by boat and Ha, the young sister describes the harrowing conditions while traveling on the boat. They are rescued at sea and land at a refuge camp to live for awhile. Soon, they have a sponsor who brings the family to Alabama, to live and to continue schooling and working and learning to speak English. Ha experiences troubles in school and her mother comforts her.

Ha narrates her tale of survival in easy to read and understand poems, following in sequence. The interest of the story increases with the departure from Vietnam.

This book was beautiful from start to finish.

Capturing this experience was so powerful and wonderful. I think having it be written chronologically made it easily accessible and helped us experience the same confusion and emotions HÀ was experiencing.

The little details make the whole story feel so real and capture every devastating part of being new or different and leaving home. I was especially impressed that this book is so poetic while also so being a full story and having character growth and so full of empathy.

This is really a great book everyone should read!

I didn't read the synopsis for this book; I chose it because it was a Newbery Honor. So I was surprised to find that it is a story told in free verse poetry format. Very simple, it is a child's perspective of the upheaval In her life when they escape Vietnam during the war and come to the United States as refugees. She tells of her family's experience on the ship leaving the country, as well as during their family's assimilation in a new, strange land.

The writing seemed stilted at first, but after awhile I got used to the free verse format and it started to flow easier. The format and point of view make the language necessarily simple for its target of middle school to older children, and I found it beautiful in its simplicity. What makes it even more poignant is learning at the end that the author used her own childhood experiences to write this. I would recommend this for young readers.

When war overcomes Saigon in 1975, Ha reluctantly flees her beloved Vietnam with her mother and three older brothers and begins an often difficult new life in Alabama. Ha faces bullying, condescension and discrimination from classmates, teachers and neighbors, and she struggles with the exasperating rules of the English language. “Would be simpler/if English/and life/were logical,” she states in frustration. Homesick, she often longs for Vietnam as she is introduced to America’s unfamiliar culture. As she discovers new friends and people who accept her, Ha learns that although America is different from Vietnam, it also holds hope for the future. Ha’s yearlong tale is told in a believable first person point of view through poignant verse. Ha’s voice is distinct and engaging as she realistically deals with everyday problems that all children face as well as those unique to her own situation. Serious scenes like glimpses of the effects of war are balanced with occasional light-hearted moments or comments. Young readers who have felt like outsiders will empathize with Ha, and this story should appeal to those who have an interest in historical fiction. Discussions about understanding other cultures or lessons about the period after the Vietnam War would be enhanced by the use of this story. Public libraries as well as elementary and middle school libraries do not want to miss out on adding this thought-provoking title to their collections.

Inside Out and Back Again by Thanhha Lai

From the inside flap:

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.

I picked this book to read over the holiday break because it had been mentioned by other reviewers as a potential contender for the 2012 Newbery award.

What I liked about this book: I'll be honest. I usually don't enjoy books written in verse. Sharon Creech's Love That Dog is a notable exception. So is Inside Out and Back Again. I really enjoyed this book. Lai paints an a moving picture of a year in the life of a Vietnamese girl who was forced to leave everything behind and try to make a life in a world that is totally foreign to her. Kim Ha is a very likable character - strong even though her world is turned totally upside down. Lai has a way with words that grabs the reader and doesn't let go. Though Kim Ha's story is not an easy one, it is beautifully written.

What I didn't like about this book: I loved it all. I don't know if it is truly Newbery worthy - I've given up trying to decide that since I seldom understand the committee's choices. Whether or not it wins the Newbery, I will be ordering it for our library and recommending it to my students who love a beautifully written story.

Based on the author's own experiences, Thanhha Lai has created a book for young adults that tells the story of her escape during the fall of Saigon in the Vietnam war. Ha, is a brave 10 year old girl who has to leave behind her home, her beloved papaya tree and the hope that her father, who has been missing for 9 years, will find them. Her family escapes aboard a Navy ship in the harbor and float slowly down the river to the ocean. They float in darkness, with rationed food, crowded aboard a ship waiting for rescue. Weeks pass by.

"After two weeks at sea
the commander calls
all of us above deck
for a formal lowering of
our yellow flag
with three red stripes.

South Vietnam no longer exists." Pg.85

They are refugees, who have lost their country and the only home they've ever known because of war. They land in Guam, live in a city of tents and eat canned fruit as they wait for someone to sponsor them.

"Our sponsor
looks just like
an American should.

Tall and pig-bellied,
Black cowboy hat,
Tan cowboy boots,
Cigar-smoking,
Teeth shining,
Red in face,
Golden in hair.

I love him
Immediately
And imagine him
To be a good-hearted and loud
And the owner of a horse." Pg.111

Their sponsor, the cowboy, takes them to his home in Alabama.

Inside Out and Back Again takes place over the period of one year. Ha faces many challenges but finds outs how strong her family is after they have suffered so much. This is a story about a resilient family, their difficult journey, and the adjustments they make, as they settle into a new country and a new way of life.

Lai has done a spectacular job of creating a novel for adolescents that captures the experience of growing up in a country that is foreign to you. Inside Out and Back Again is well-written, entertaining and award winning.

Guess what my seventh grader will be reading this summer?

I love reading stories that don't fit inside the box, which is true of this one, semi-autobiographical in nature. It is about (and is narrated by) a ten-year-old girl named Ha, who, along with her mother and three elder brothers, leaves Vietnam just before the fall of Saigon aboard a military vessel, only to land in, of all places, Alabama, in the care of a cowboy who does not ride a horse and his wife who only takes them in under duress. What struck me while listening to the audio version, performed perfectly by native speaker Doan Ly, is Ha's resilience. Although forced to leave her native country, friends, missing-in-action father (and her beloved papaya tree), and enter a world where she must start over in an entirely new environment, she does not give up. Her strong (but willing to compromise when necessary) mother wants what every parent wants, to see her children succeed in the world. Readers will notice the brilliance of the writing (in this story that takes place over about a year, from the first day of the lunar calendar, February 11, of 1975 until January 31, 1976) throughout, as in this lovely part about the fruit falling from her papaya tree that her brother cuts down when they are forced to flee.
(p 60)
"Black seeds spill
like clusters of eyes,
wet and crying."
Besides its unusual poetry form, what I also like is the connection the reader can not help but feel to Ha, as she tries to find her way. The section where she tries to wrap her head around the English language's "s" provides a great example of her perceptiveness and humor.
(p 118)
"Brother Quang says
add an s to nouns to mean more than one
even if there's
already an s
sitting there.
Glass
Glass-es
All day
I practice
squeezing hisses
through my teeth.
Whoever invented
English
must have loved
snakes."
Its descriptiveness was another highlight. The way the children at the school in Alabama are described illustrates this well,
(p 142)
"Fire hair on skin dotted with spots.
Fuzzy dark hair on skin shiny as laquer.
Hair the color of root on milky skin.
Lots of braids on milk chocolate.
White hair on pink boy."
I think that this is an excellent book for young adults because reading the story provides valuable life lessons on things such as: the victim's view of being bullied and teased, the difficulties of being different from your peers, how small (and large) kindnesses can make all the difference to someone having a tough time, and that members of a group (in this case, Ha's family) who work together to face obstacles and adversity can become a force to be reckoned with. After listening to it, I read it through just to compare the experiences. Listening to the audio version is absolutely the way to go. Inside Out and Back Again is one of my all-time favorite books that have received the Newbery (Honor or Winner) Award. Also good: Homeless Bird by, Glorian Whelan, One Crazy Summer by Rita Williams-Garcia, and The Wednesday Wars by Gary D. Schmidt.

Wonderful view of the emotions of a child thrust into a new culture and a new language. I liked the warmth and strength of her Mom as she maintained the warmth and comfort of their traditional ways and at the same time thrusting her children forward to adapt and succeed.
It took a bit to get into the idea of the book being all poems but the form captured the inner world of the girl so well, I grew to enjoy and value the style.

I will admit straight away that I am not a fan of novels written in verse. It is all the rage in YA literature right now, and I have been studiously avoiding most of them because frankly, I just don't get it. After reading Inside Out & Back Again I think I am beginning to see the value in this format because this novel just blew me away. In telling the story of Ha and her flight to America after the fall of Saigon, the author created images so vivid and elicited emotions so powerful that for the first time I think I truly understood what it must have been like to be on one of those boats that I had only before seen in news footage. I don't think this could have been achieved in a standard novel format.

In verse, I could see the beauty of Ha's papaya tree and feel her fear of walking into the fourth grade with practically no English. I could see the humor and sadness in the family's efforts to fit into American life and feel outraged at the problems they faced. I could also appreciate the wisdom and bravery shown by Ha and her mother as they came to terms with the loss of a father and husband all the while struggling to fit into a culture that couldn't have been more foreign. When Ha finally adopts her mother's advice and begins to accept things as "not the same, but not bad" it is a powerful and hopeful moment.

The author's ability to portray Ha with such depth of feeling is what will engage readers. This is a must read both as a means to introduce an historical period that is given little attention in this age group and also just because it's a compelling piece of fiction.

This book blew me away! I read it in one sitting for VCFA and loved that the author chose to write the story in free verse. It really reflected the voice authenticity and emotions of a ten-year-old girl adjusting to a new life in a different country. I felt so sad for Hà and wanted to cry on every page. My dad’s family were refugees from Vietnam (although they are full Chinese) during the same time and I’ve heard horrific stories about. I definitely experienced a deep connection with Hà partly because of this, and also because I too was bullied in elementary school. I’m really glad I found this book because it had such an impact on me and I recommend it to everybody!

Inside Out and Back Again is a moving and adventurous story about Ha’, a Vietnamese girl living in the time of the Vietnam war. Like many others, she and her family flee their home and everything they know, after their land is deemed unsafe. Ha’ has to contend with three brothers who she realizes, are not that bad after all. In her own way, Ha’ adjusts to her new surroundings after being sponsored and taken to Alabama by a family. She meets a lot of people who hate her, some who help her and others who befriend her. Thrown into a new world of English, she cannot express herself and everything, to her, is a muddle.

Nostalgia is a competing force, and she misses her old life, especially the food and her little papaya tree. Her inability to speak English along with some other contributing factors sets her unfavorably apart from the majority of the others in her class. She becomes a wonderful target for bullies but fights them back in time. In this gripping book, the story is narrated so realistically that you find yourself feeling and experiencing everything Ha’ does. A very good story, interesting, but moving in an unwavering line with no sharp twists or turns. Open the first page and plunge in to the world of a homesick girl and her adventures and experiences.

Such a sweet story inspired by the author's childhood experience of fleeing Vietnam after the fall of Saigon and immigrating to Alabama. I love this book. The format, prose & poetry, was wonderful. It allows an emotional & heavy story to be told in honest & beautiful way.
My favorite quotes:
" whoever invented English should had learned to spell"
"Oh, my daughter at times you have to fight, but preferably not with your fist"
" Mrs. Washington says if every learner waits to speak perfectly, no one would learn a new language"
"Being stubborn won't make you fluent. Practicing will! The more mistakes you make, the more you will learn not to.

Ten-year-old Kim Ha and her family are living in Vietnam during the war. Things are rough. They have barely enough to get by, and her father is a military prisoner. They haven't heard from him and honestly don't know if he's alive or dead.

When things get too dangerous to stay, they get on a boat to come to America. They are sponsored by a man from Alabama who helps them settle in, despite prejudice from many of the neighbors. It's not easy for Kim to fit in. She feels stupid for the first time ever because of her difficulty with English, and she's bullied at school. Her family and a warm-hearted neighbor help her make the transition.

I enjoyed this story that the author says is based on her own history. It was touching and caused me to have compassion on all the families who immigrate here with a language barrier and amidst difficult circumstances. However, it's written in non-rhyming verse. That plus the fact that it's set in the 70's in a foreign country (initially) will probably turn most kids off. However, even though I was unsure about the novel in verse concept, it actually made for an easy read, and if reluctant readers could be convinced to pick it up, I wonder if they actually would enjoy it?

I have to admit that I didn't like poems very much until I came across this. And in fact, when I first got the book, I didn't even know it was a verse novel! So when I opened the pages, I thought about sending it back because I thought it was going to be boring. Boy was I wrong! This has become one of my favorite books to read. It's short, but deep and very poetic. Thanhha Lai uses very few words to capture such enormous emotions. I fell in love with some of her shorter poems in the book. She does such a wonderful job conveying a message using just a few words. I felt sad for the character, cried with the character, and rooted for her all at the same time. The author does a great job immersing me into the story.

I absolutely adored this book. It was deep and spoke to my heart about how life was tough for an asian to live in America. The children had no idea who or even what the girl was. Since being asian myself (korean) it really dug deep. I felt so bad for Ha, a ten year old enduring all those hardships, I was crying by the end of the book, hungry for more about Ha's life in America. I felt so connected to her. She made me stick to her like glue throughout the entire book, from the first page to the last. It felt so poetic, the words were simple, yet endearing, tender,sad, and intriguing . I reccommend this book to anyone who wants a good read, you won't be disappointed.

This is the heartfelt, beautiful story of a family's journey to the United States as refugees from the Vietnam war, much of it based on the author's true history. It's full of love for home, loss, hope, and the ultimate discovery of a new home that's "not the same, but not bad." The whole story has stuck with me, but one part that particularly struck me is actually from an interview with Thanhha Lai added to the back of the paperback edition. She speaks of her refugee experience forty years before and says:

"Children do not act in a vacuum. How they behave directly reflects what adults are saying around them. So while I now understand my former classmates' behavior, I do expect them to have grown up and gained perspective and to speak with more care and insight around their own children. Refugees are still coming to the United States every day because elsewhere in the world wars still rage and people still flee. I choose to believe that these refugees would be greeted with more awareness and compassion than I was."

How said it is that we don't seem to be seeing this now.

This was a great book to explain the p!ight of a refugee from a child's perspective. I like how it made the frustration of the language barrier so relatable. The juxtaposition of intolerance and kindness was very well done.

We begin with the Year of the Cat in 1975, where we are first introduced to the culture of Vietnam. Per tradition, the way one acts that day dictates the mood for the rest of the year and the oldest male of the family is the first to step on the floor on the first day of the new year in order to bring good luck to the family. Ha, our main character, does not set well to the tradition, so she secretly taps her toe on the floor first. She continues in free-verse poem to narrate her story as a refugee from Vietnam when Saigon falls to Ho Chi Ming and the communists. Ha experiences racism and apart from losing her father, her home and her papaya tree, a symbolism of hope, Ha loses her sense of knowledge and the ability to communicate with others due to her language barrier. She was unable to express how smart she truly was or to interact with others because she could not speak English, which is her bildungsroman that defines her.
The topic of refugees and forced migration is very pertinent to today’s society and would facilitate the discussion on immigration and refugees throughout the world. The short verses, Vietnamese history, and the easy flow of the sections captivates young adult readers and helps garnish a better understanding of the struggles refugees experience when forced to relocate to a new place.

This book is about a young girl (Kim Ha) and her family's life in Saigon, South Vietnam in 1975. Without giving too much away, I can say that evntually the family is forced to flee Saigon and go to Alabama, where thye face a whole new set of challenges. I reallt liked the historical context of the novel. Everything is accurate and research based which is nice. I usually dislike poetry, but I kind of liked this book. It was not bad. It wasn't too full of symbolism and hippy-dippy.

I feel like the author chose to include both "inside out" and "back again" to show her experiences and the full universal refugee experience. It was to show that it isn't all about your lifed being ruined or turned "inside out". It's also about afterwards, how you get "back again". How you find family and a sense of community.

I would recommend this novel in verse to any poetry-reading history lovers. it definitely isn't too symbolic which is nice for me. I like literal things, that is why I don't really love poetry. But this, for sure, is poetry and exhibits other trats shwing that. There is a nice balance with ressearch-based info on that time period.

Good Luck!

Ten year old Ha has only known Saigon for her whole life, but when the Vietnam War reaches her home, Ha and her family must flee to America. In Alabam, Ha discovers cold strangers, dull food, strange landscape, but also the strength of her own family as they stay together. This novel is written in verse, and I think that was the right choice. Some of the poems are really observant, and sad. Ha was a smart student back in Vietnam, but in the US she's made to feel stupid because of her limited English, and bullied by the other kids. Also, as a foreigner, she notices the strangeness of English and its many rules. Also, her father disappeared back in Vietnam, and they wait for news of him throughout the book. Inside Out & Back Again is compelling novel with a great narrator.

*You can read all of my reviews at my blog, [...]*

A lovely, lovely book and an appropriate read to finish around Martin Luther King day, considering the theme of prejudice woven amongst a young immigrant's story.

Ha is 10 years old when the Vietnam War ends and she escapes along with her mother and 3 brothers on a ship. Picked up at sea the family is moved first to a camp and then to Alabama. All will struggle with their surroundings - strange food, language difficulties and cruel neighbors. Over time they find kindness, opportunity and acceptance.

The entire book is written in short verse. It's quite amazing how much Thannha Lai conveys in so few words. She captures the emotions of a young girl, torn from her country and the only life she's ever known. Highly recommended.
Lisa Ard, Author of Fright Flight, Dream Seekers Book One

Inside Out & Back Again is the story of a young girl in Vietnam, who loved papaya and her mother, longed for her lost father and came on a boat to America in 1975. Written in verse, her story is one of truth, courage, hardships, hope and renewal. She lives an entire life worth of joys and sorrows in the one year documented through her poetry, written like journal entries. It is poetry that speaks of life, of change -- and, most importantly, of love.

Thinking about the most memorable of children's novels, one trait in all of them has to ring true in order for them to click with their readers. The books must contain some kind of "meaning". Even the frothiest Charlie and the Chocolate Factory-type offering isn't going to remain long in the public's brain if there isn't at least a little "meaning" slipped in there. Now when I use the term "meaning" I'm being purposefully vague because it's not the kind of thing you can easily define. What is meaningful to one person might strike another as trite or overdone. I personally believe that adult novels contain this saccharine faux-meaning a lot more often than their juvenile contemporaries, and why not? Adult books can get away with it while children's books are read by the harshest of all possible critics: children. As a librarian and a reviewer, I'm pretty tough too. I get mighty suspicious of prose that gets a little too lyrical or characters that spout the book's thinly disguised premise on every other page. All this is leading up to the fact that when I turned my jaded suspicion-filled toxic eyeballs on Thanhha Lai's "Inside Out and Back Again" I found nothing to displease me. Lai's debut novel speaks with a natural voice that's able to make salient points and emotional scenes without descending into overly sentimental goo. This author makes a point to draw from her own life. The result is a novel that works in every conceivable way.

"No one would believe me but at times I would choose wartime in Saigon over peacetime in Alabama." Ha has known both in her life, actually. Born in Vietnam during the war, Ha lives with her mother and three older brothers. Her father disappeared years ago on a navy mission when Ha was just one. Today the family doesn't even know if he's alive, but when the chance comes to flee Saigon and make a new life in America, Ha's mother doesn't hesitate. Once they're settled in Alabama, Ha has a whole new set of problems ahead of her. She's homesick, mad that she's no longer the smartest girl in class, and tormented after school by some of the boys. Yet the solution, it seems, is not to become someone different but to take what she is already and find a way to make her new life work.

In a way "Inside Out and Back Again" kind of marks the second coming of the verse novel. A couple years ago this style of writing for children was hugely popular, helped in no small part by Newbery Award winning books like Karen Hesse's "Out Of The Dust". For some it represented the perfect way to get to the heart of a story without unnecessary clutter. Unfortunately, others regarded it as a quick and easy way to write a novel with a word count only slightly higher than your average picture book. The market was saturated and finally verse novels began to peter out. It finally got to the point where I became convinced that the only way a verse novel would work would be if there was some reason for it to even BE in verse. If the author couldn't justify the format then why did they even choose that style of writing? I haven't reviewed a verse novel since 2009's "Tropical Secrets: Holocaust Refugees in Cuba" by Margarita Engle and like Engle's book, Thanhha Lai's novel is written in verse for a concrete, very good reason. In both cases you have stories where children were entering strange new lands where they did not necessarily know the language. To make this book a verse novel, the child reader gets to be inside Ha's head while at the same time encountering sentences that are broken up in ways different from your average middle grade novel. The result is simultaneously intimate and isolating. It's perfect.

There are a fair number of children's books about immigrants coming to America, most of them historical in some way. Ha's story feels a bit more contemporary since it's set in the late 20th century. Other immigrant stories for kids always cover the same territory (hostile neighbors, the other kids at school, strange foods, etc.). What I like about Lai's book is that Ha does something I've rarely seen immigrant characters do in books for kids. She gets mad. I mean really rip-roaring, snorting, furious. Here she is, a bright kid, and now she has to feel like she's stupid all that time at school simply because English isn't her first language. It's infuriating! And it was this spark of anger that cinched Ha's character for me. You can have a sympathetic protagonist set upon by the world all you want, but when that character exhibits an emotion other than mere passive acceptance or sorrow, that's when you find something about them to hold on to. Ha's anger lets child readers really understand her. It's necessary to who she is, drilled home by the section called "Wishes". In that two page spread, Ha discusses all the things she wishes for, including the return of her father. Then, tellingly, "Most I wish I were still smart."

Maybe what I really liked about the book was that it wasn't a one trick pony. Sure, much of it is about moving to America and what that's like. But it's also a novel about family. Ha's brothers are hugely annoying to her when the family is living in Vietnam. They're all older, after all, and they get a bit more attention and freedom. When the family uproots and leaves everything they've known behind, Ha begins to connect to them in new ways. She becomes a comfort and helpmate to her brother Khoi when he suffers a kind of nervous breakdown over the death of his baby chick. She learns self-defense from Vu, her Bruce Lee obsessed brother. And of course it's her brother Quang who really saves the day for her in the end (I won't give away how). The change is slow in coming, which keeps it from feeling manipulative or false. It's just a natural coming together of family members in a hostile world. Good stuff.

As for the writing itself, I'm a bit tired of the term "lyrical". That's just personal, though, and I'm sure that if you troll the professional reviews for descriptions of the book that word will surface again and again in relation to this book. With good reason, of course. Lai knows from which she speaks. At the same time, though, she's making choices in the narrative that I found very interesting. For example, at first you think that you're reading a kind of pseudo-diary of Ha's life since her first two entries comes with dates (February 11th and 12th, respectively). Yet when you hit the third piece, it describes the ways in which Ha's brothers tease her ending, not with a specific date, but with the phrase, "Every day". In this way Lai is able to separate out the things that happen only once on a specific day and those things that occur frequently. It's a subtle technique, but it makes the author's point. Lai also makes small notes about the world that give a person pause. Since this is the story of a girl moving to Alabama in the early 70s, it will probably prompt a lot of discussion in bookgroups when she says of the cafeteria, "On one side of the bright, noisy room, light skin. Other side, dark skin. Both laughing, chewing, as if it never occurred to them someone medium would show up."

Lai is also able to teach kids about Vietnamese society without coming off all school marmish. I knew about the holiday of Tet in a vague sense (mostly from "Ten Mice for Tet!"), but what I didn't know was that not only is Tet a Vietnamese New Year's, it's also the day everyone celebrates their own birthdays.

All told, "Inside Out and Back Again" has the brevity of a verse novel packed with a punch many times its size. It's one of the lovelier books I've read in a long time, and can make you think about and question the entire immigrant novel genre, so long a permanent part of the American children's literary canon. Lai drew upon much of her own life to write this book. Now I'd like to see what she's capable of when she looks at other subjects as well. Great new author. Great new book.

For ages 9-12.

I borrowed the ebook from our public library. At first I was disappointed when I realized it was written in the style of poetry. But as I started reading the story it became interesting and heartwarming. I believe the book is written for young readers thus the easy and simplicity of the writing. But I really enjoyed the story. I would recommend this book if you are looking for a quick, easy read that will capture you from the beginning and hold you to the end. I gave it 3 stars because the worth was short and I wish it had went it the girl growing up and did they ever hear from their father after all these years.

Inside Out and Back Again was moving, insightful, and even had moments of humor. I thought I couldn't really follow novels in verse, but this format actually made the story even more impactful. I would highly recommend this book to everyone, adults included (which I am!).

I am a better person having read this beautifully written memoir. Drawing from her personal experience, Lai gave me valuable understanding of what it is for a child caught up in war, having to flee, leaving all her known world behind and meeting the challenges of a new culture.

It's the end of the long Vietnam War and Ha and her family live in Vietnam. It's a beautiful place, despite the war going on all around them, with delicious food and lush gardens. Ha does brilliant work in school and she has a wonderful, close-knit family. It's a small Eden in the midst of the terrible war.

Then the family cannot put things off any longer; the country they love is collapsing and they must leave Vietnam. The family escapes on a packed boat and is taken in by a cowboy in the American South and life becomes truly surreal for Ha.

A wonderful book that is deeply sad and wildly hopeful.

Has your teacher ever recommended a book to you? Well my 7th grade English teacher told me about a phenomenal book. This book is, Inside Out & Back Again By: Thanhha Lai.
A little girl named Ha and her family were forced to move from their home, because of the Vietnam war. This girl lives with her Mother, and her three brothers, while her dad serves in the war. Ha and her family are forced to be put on a ship and hope for a better life. Ha and her family end up coming to America, and find a place they think is a fantasy called Alabama. Yet, Ha doesn’t know what is going to happen in this said place called, Alabama.
Inside Out & Back Again was a wonderful book this book showed me that we all struggle. Ha has a miraculous journey as she travels. Although, Ha has to overcome hard times with family, and even friend. I highly recommend this book to people who like non-fiction all kids.
by Ellie, 7th grade

Bought this for my 10 year old daughter. She explained that it was a slow start but she stuck with it - and was glad she did! She read this book three times in a row. I look for books to keep my kids interested. There is no better review than a 5th grader reading three consecutive times!

Warning, before you read this I just want you to know that this review contains spoilers. The year the book took place was in 1968, in the countries of South Vietnam, Guam, and The United States of America. The mood of this story is a little sad in the beginning but towards the end it starts to get happy. I think the author chose to write this way to express her feelings since she is the main character named Há, a ten year old girl from Vietnam. The supporting characters are Há's mom, her brother Khôi the car mechanic, and her brother Vu the martial arts teacher. It starts in Vietnam where the main character lives with her mom and her two brothers. However Vietnam was attacked by the communists forcing Há and her family to evacuate. They find out that they are sailing to Guam and from there they have to decide where they are going to go. They decide to go to America, so the next day that are flown to a tent city in Florida. The day after they arrived in Florida, a cowboy asked Khôi to help at his mechanic shop in Alabama so they flew to Alabama. Even though they were having fun traveling all over the place they were still sad about one thing and that was when their father left for war and never returned. I thought this book was a fun book to read. My favorite part was when they were sailing to Vietnam, because Há plucked a mans arm hair because she thought it was fuzzy. The only part I would change is when Vietnam was attacked. I would only recommend this book to six graders and up because some parts are confusing. But overall it is a very good book.

I am a 10 year old girl and I will be teling you what I think about "Inside Out and Back Again." I love this book and I like hiw Lai was able to have book with stanzas. I think that it was very easy to realate to the character. I also love how after reading every page you learned something new. I think that for next time, Lai shold make it longer because when it ended, I was disappointed. I think that this book is good for people who like realistic fiction. I cannot tell you everythng, you have to read the book yourself! :)

This book was great. It was an easy read for my students, and it had great examples of figurative language. It was difficult with some of the Vietnamese words, but that led to some good discussion in the class. As an adult, I loved the wit and spunk of our heroine. Fantastic story!

My 6-yr-old and I love this book. We took turns reading it to each other. I had to explain many things in it to her, but we both found the narration and style moving and sincere. It was like living in the author's memories. Even though fictionalized, it gave a feeling of being able to touch someone else's life and story in a way that many wordier or more plot-driven books do not.
The difficulties and sadnesses in this story are well-balanced with the family figuring out how to live in a new, strange place. And there is much humor, the kind of small humor you find to keep your laughter alive in difficult times.
The portrayal of the mother is particularly beautiful-- a completely real, full personality drawn in very few words.
My daughter enjoyed the way the family's connection to each other and the wider community was shown. It felt very honest to her.

I love the deceptively simple poetic style that powerfully tells the story of Ha, a Vietnamese refugee. Though it is Ha’s story, it could be the story of millions displaced and feeling dumb when they are amazingly smart

This young adult book is so beautiful. The story is written with such amazing simplicity. It's simple strokes carve out the experience of a child who is a refugee better than a million words. That is true art!

Based on the author's personal experiences, Inside Out & Back Again is a physical and emotional journey of a young refugee girl. Told in beautiful verse, the writing will invite you in and wrap you up in the story.

This book touched something deep inside of me. I did not expect to like it as much as I did. I connected with the protagonist and felt like I could relate to her journey.

Highly recommended.

Content: clean

Cover: I love this cover! It makes me think of new beginnings, hope, and happiness.

Inside Out and Back Again is a great book for any child in mid elementary school or older. Ha is a young girl in Vietnam during the Vietnam War in 1975. As she and her brothers yearn for their father to return from war, their mother puts them on a boat to a refugee camp in the USA. Ha learns a lot about life and growing up as she tries to understand the American culture, learn English, and adjust to her new life.

This is a wonderful book for children to read. First, all of the text is in stanzas like poems so the pages fly by. It is difficult to become bored or overwhelmed while reading this book. In addition, the book deals with a heavy situation from a child's perspective. This book really helps to encourage cognitive development and skills such as text to self, where they start to think when they have felt left out, misunderstood, or alone as Ha often does. Lastly, there is a lot of culture variation told from a different point of view so the reader is able to see through Ha's eyes what it is like to be an immigrant to the United States. I highly recommend this book.

As a songwriter, I often have a hard time with poetry - it misses the beat I'm accustomed to hearing, even in my head. I had my doubts when I bought this book, but the store's YA best-seller list and editors gave it rave reviews, so there I was.
What a gorgeous piece of work! If I had any criticism at all (and I don't), it would be that I wished there was more of it. I'd love to see this turned into a novel, or a series of short stories. By the end, I was in love with the entire family. How wonderful.

Inside Out & Back Again is a beautiful and powerful novel in verse that really makes you feel for the characters. It's a fast read, and I highly recommend it, especially in a time when more understanding is needed regarding refugees and immigration.

I loved this book. As an elementary school teacher, I think it's a great way for children (who have not had the experience) to see what it might feel like to be a refugee. The language is beautiful, and the emotions really come through in the short-lined verse. It's a lovely, lovely book that I enjoyed a great deal myself!

What a unique and compelling way to tell a story.

Lai's account of her life - both in Vietnam and America - gives us just enough detail to understand the pain, the humiliation, the love of family. We sense the cruelty of her classmates, the kindness of her neighbor who teaches her English, and the sorrow of her beloved country at war.

I thoroughly enjoyed the telling of her story. And, I felt her pain.

Beautifully told. Her use of free verse works very well in this case.

All the things I did to help my Asian students could have been helped a hundred times over with a book such as this. Those actions, words we thought were helpful were probably not so helpful or misunderstood. I know now to ask about unique products and practices of each country, memorable smells and foods. I would watch over them more carefully from those who choose to not understand for to care.

Inside Out& Back again is honestly the most easy read .Sometimes when you look at a book and you see so many words on one page it can be frustrating . Especially if its a deadline for reading the book . Now the book is in a poetry form so they are short poems about the certain events that were going on .

I have basically gotten through half of the book however it was really easy to read which is why I was able to knock it out in less than a couple hours . At the moment they are all describing her family .She describes her family and the things they go through . They are about to move from the place she grew up all her life . She isn't used to anything besides that . Her her family will have to transport to America .

I really like the fact that the book is in a poem form it makes for a shorter read as well as easier for me to remember certain details .

Simple, truthful, beautiful. Having visited Vietnam a few years ago, and after meeting the people and hearing their stories, this book so wonderfully captures their character, their life and history, their experiences and their depth. Lovely. So many of these short, simple narratives made me visualize the people I met, while others made me simple imagine.

This is one book I enjoyed reading. It is about a Vietnamese family fleeing Saigon due to Vietnam War. They flee to the United States. Ha is a 10-year old girl whom is the main character. She makes this book into her diary and what she thinks of her family customs and the new American lifestyle. She is very strong willed and wants to do what her brothers (the males) do but her mother reminds her of the male role in their Vietnamese culture. In America, Ha has a culture shock when she sees people with different color of skin, different styles of hair, different food, different language, and different daily routines. I enjoy how Ha describes the features of people that are alien to her. The family and Ha learn how to adapt to their new American lifestyle. They learn how to eat the American food, live in an American house, learn the American language - English, attend the American schools/workforce, and convert to the Christian religion - just so that they can be accepted into American society. I enjoy how Ha observes her new lifestyle and tries to understand with the help with her family and two new American friends. This story made me realize how life changing it can be when someone enters a new lifestyle in a foreign country.

This book is a beautiful way to introduce your kids to another culture. I bought it for a 9 year old so wanted to read it first and determine if age appropriate. I fell in love with Ha, a little girl with spunk, intense feeling and insight beyond her years. I didn't know it was poetry when ordered. It's like a journal in prose and very well written. The poems each tackle a day or feeling or event, something in Ha's life. This is a gift worthy book. It is unique and inspiring, empowering for girls.

It is so hard to be the new girl in school. But when you are not only the new girl, but you are also struggling with a new language, new food, and a new culture, and the only thing your classmates know about Vietnam is that their father/brother/neighbor fought there, things are much harder. As seen through the eyes of 10-year-old Ha, a Vietnam refugee, this is a beautiful, poignant, lyrical journal of her escape, hurt, and healing.

Recommended for ages 8 and up

A thrilling tale—I couldn’t put it down! The main character, Há, is a ten-year-old Vietnamese girl living in Saigon at the time of the Vietnam War. During the story, she and her family are forced to flee Vietnam. Their twisty-turny journey lands them in Alabama, where Há struggles to master English and stand up to bullies in her new school. There is racial prejudice and name-calling. Ha’s family is Buddhist, and Há’s mother states that all religions lead to the same place, a belief I do not support.
Overall, however, Inside Out and Back Again is a good, well-written book.

Such a thing of beauty. I finished the book, read the Author's Note, and promptly burst into tears. This is why Thanhha Lai is quickly becoming a favorite author of mine. At once harrowing, witty, heartbreaking, and hilarious, Inside Out and Back Again is a masterpiece. It didn't win The National Book Award for nothing!

Inside Out and Back Again is a moving historical children's fiction. This book is about a girl and her family and their struggles in leaving Saigon, Vietnam during the Vietnam War and adjusting to life in America. It is not an easy move, especially with the knowledge that they are leaving a husband and father who could possibly come back from the war. He has been gone for nine years and is believed to be a P.O.W., but they have not heard anything from him in nine long years. The book focuses on Ha and her life as she tries to adjust. She has to learn English, learn the customs and figure out how to survive in American society when some days all she wants is to be eating from her papaya tree back in Vietnam. Things in Vietnam were hard, but they were familiar. This book is a great example of how hard it is for those coming into our country and I would highly recommend it to teachers, especially those working with ELL and ESL students.

Title of Book:Inside out and back again
Author's Name Thanhha Lai
Publisher Harper
Year of Publication 2011
Number of Pages 262
Price 15.99 USD
Topic (e.g., Relationships, Sports, Fantasy, War, etc.) Novels and poems
ISBN (Please include dashes) 978-0-06-196278-3

I heard of this beautiful poem book from my Literature for Children and Young Adults class. When I first saw the cover of the book, I was attracted by the little girl who was under a big tree. Her arm was opening to the bright sunrise. Thus, I thought this book was a fantasy book about a girl's adventure. However, after I read the book, I knew I was totally wrong. This book is a book that depend on real experience rather than a fantasy book. The main character Ha's experience also happened to the author. Lai uses poems to describe her compelled immigrant experience from her hometown South Vietnam to America because of the Vietnam war. Although this book contains some obstacles and challenges that she faced during the ten years, the book inspired me a lot. It redeemed me about sweet hope and fearless ardor for life.

This book was assigned to me in a children's literature class. I wasn't sure initially if I was among the appropriate audience, though I'm in 3rd grade and above. A Sunday afternoon, I leisurely put myself into a couch in the library and started reading. Ten pages later, I realized, yes, I am among the appropriate audience. This book can talk to me; the narrator, HÀ can talk to me.
HÀ is a ten-year-old Vietnamese girl who witnessed the Vietnam War and is an excellent observer. She might not possess a sophisticated understanding of what the War means to the world, but she knows it by heart, better than most, as she notices the day-to-day changes in her life. In a series of narrative poems, she presents a truthful experience of a family of war refugees and an America full of obstacles as well as opportunities.

This lyrical narrative is written in journal entry format as it tells the story of a ten-year-old girl’s experience. First, with her family in Vietnam just before the fall of Saigon, then, her journey across the sea on a crowded military vessel, and finally, in her strange new home in Alabama. The book speaks of the sensory details of her day (the taste of a fresh papaya, the smell of a dead chick, and the sounds of a bully running behind her), but focuses on her internal experiences connected to each instance, her thoughts and emotions.
I found the emotion in this book to be sincere and relatable which made it very powerful, even though her experiences were so foreign. I enjoyed the language used and found it poetic and evocative. I like that this book might encourage the reader to consider the struggles and perspectives of others and help them to learn empathy and open-mindedness.
I recommend this book for ages 8 and up.

This is a book review is for Inside Out And Back Again by Thanhha Lai.This book is about a vietnamese kid named Ha.And she has to go to america because there is a war in vietnam so the got kicked out of there home. They cross the ocean and go to alabama where Ha and her family live with a nice man who helps her mom and brother get jobs.

I think this book was interesting.I like how the author wrote the book so it was a chapter every page (Not every).I also like how the author put detail on what it was like to learn english and how much of a diffrence America was to saigon.I think the author put lots of detail in when she was bullied with I didn't know kids got bullied the much.

In this book Inside Out And Back Again there is a family Há is the youngest sibling with three brothers and her mother the father is missing somewhere in the navy. Ha is only 10 years old her brothers are all older. There are struggles in Vietnam so they flee to America. In America she has trouble with other students bullying her and learning english.

I really like the book because almost all the things that happened to Há happened to the writer, Thanhha Lai, that make me feel what that might have felt. I also liked how they had the book with many things that have not been told and you have to wait to find out more.

"Inside Out and Back Again" is a beautiful novel about a young girl named Kim Ha from Vietnam who suffers the hardship of leaving her home country and moving to Alabama U.S.A., because of the Vietnam War. This story is based of the authors experience as a child. This book is a unique combination of stories and poetry that other authors have not been able to create. The description in this story allows the reader to feel as if they are in the characters shoes and gives the reader a look into her world.The title “Inside Out and Back Again” fits the story perfectly since Ha’s life had twisted inside-out and upside down.This story is perfect for readers to find out what it's like to be a person from another country ,speak a different language, have a different culture and mentality,and have to adapt to a new and strange world.

Inside Out And Back Again Review

The book Inside out and back again is about a girl named Ha' who independent and does not really like to be outgoing she is very independent and she has three brothers and there a war coming her way to her family, her mother decides to go away from the kids home. When Ha' finally gets on a boat and goes off her one of her brother, Vu le' his favorite thing dies Ha' does something really nice she throws her favorite doll off the boat for her brother. Then she moves in to her new home....

I think this book is very good I love this book because it's not 8 topics it's 2-5 topics and that helps me very much because it get lost when there more than 8 topics, I highly recommend everyone to read this book because its really good book. It's fiction. When you read this you'll get sad you'll have a smile on your face. I love this book and you should this book because it's a amazing.

I was initially put off by the "written in verse" but it actually made the book even more enjoyable. A beautifully written book that can be enjoyed by young teenagers as well as adults, it is a first person narrative about a 10 year old Vietnamese girl's experience emigrating to the US after the end of the Vietnam war. It has a very powerful message about the barriers and difficulties that immigrants can face in this country.

Inside Out & Back Again
by Thanhha Lai
HarperCollins, 2011, 272 pp., $16.99
Explore the World, Asia, War
ISBN: 978-0061962783

I was attracted to this book because it is about the war times from the viewpoint of a young Vietnamese girl. The children might not depict wars with delicately condemning words when they were hurt, but we could still tell the author's fear, anger and anxiety through her simple yet heart-wrenching words though she didn't mean to express them. For example, when she had to cut down her papaya--which she had cared for for a long time, she wrote "black seeds spill like clusters of eyes, wet and crying." I could see a picture with a grieved girl crying in her heart who was so heartbroken that seeds were figuratively seen as wet and crying eyes in her eyes. This book is brim with a sense of sorrow, especially when the author tries to recall joyful moments which make a sharp contrast to the cruelty and inhumanity of wars.

Chris Ma

I have never read a novel-in-verse, but I was moved by the power of Thanhha Lai’s words. Each had to carry so much, but she chose well. Her story is a refugee’s story, an immigrant’s story. Forced to leave all she knew, forced to find social webs, she is tossed about until she finally finds a place she can call home.

This is the beautifully told story of a Vietnamese family fleeing Saigon. Written in the convincing voice of a 10 year old girl, the account was absolutely captivating. I laughed and I cried. Free verse poetry makes the reading of this book go all too quickly; each word so well placed, effectively carrying the weight of full sentence. This fictional tale (inspired by the author's own experience) was candid and poignant. Find two hours and read this book. It will alter your perceptions and stir you to compassion. If it doesn't soften your interactions with those who are different, you have failed to attend.

This book is amazing, if people aren't interested in "Inside Out and Back Again," who knows what they are intrested in. This is a heartbreaking story, based on true events witnessed by the auther. Thanhha Lai tell us a story about a girl named, Ha, and the trajic events she had to face as she fled Vietnam. This is a wonderful story and I encourage young readers to read this.

Excellently written, brief, poetic, honest. Thanhha Lai writes a simple yet powerful story of what it means to have to flee your country and struggle to get to a new place foreign and frightening. Her depiction of her struggle to learn a new language is revealing, humorous, and heart breaking. How common it is for us to laugh at someone else's struggles and consider them less intelligent if they don't speak well. Especially if we have never been the outsider were we are involuntarily burdened with learning a foreign language and customs. In its simplicity this book gives you lots of space for contemplation. Well done.

I loved this sad, depressing, but happy at the same time book. This book is about a little girl named Ha who lives in Saigon, Vietnam. Her family is not the luckiest. Their father is captured in the war, the family is poor, and Saigon is under attack. Ha and her family, have to escape Saigon and live somehow. At the adoption center, where Americans adopt families or single people to live with them in America, the family of 5 tries to get adopted. They have to live in Alabama, with the hope of father finding them. Ha isn't at all happy with school. She can't speak english well.
This book was very sad and depressing, but has a nice ending to it. Read this book! I give it a 4.5 star rating. This book is fun to read when you are bored in the summer time. But be prepared to cry. This book gets really sad and then happy. It also can be a bit scary. Inside Out and Back Again is one of my favorite books. This book is by Thanhha Lai. I loved this book and I hope you enjoy it too.

What would you do if you woke up one day and your entire country was no more? Little Ha faced this fate the year of 1975 when Saigon went under attack during the Vietnam war. With her favorite doll, brothers, and mother with the saddest eyes in tow; they left behind everything they owned to escape the fate of many of their neighbors and childhood and set out to a refugee camp by the sea. As a nine year old, how would you feel having to lie down every day on a cramped boat only to come out at night just to bathe? Refugees had it hard.
After camp for several weeks, Ha's family is taken in by an Alabama man and for several weeks it took a toll on Ha's family to have to accustom to America. Speaking English, changing their faith, and keeping hope alive were many of the tasks. In the end, they are able to overcome with the help of new friends and people who believed in them.

This is the first book that I can recall reading that was written entirely in free-verse poetry. To my surprise, it was quite accessible and I enjoyed it a lot. It read faster than a prose novel, but still carried enough emotion in the short verse chapters to hold my interest.

The immigrant experience in 1975 as seen through the eyes of a 10-year-old girl was a refreshing change for me, and I loved Hà's descriptions of Vietnam and her new home in Alabama. There's not much more I can say about the story without giving too much away. But I would definitely recommend it to the intended middle-grade reading audience, as well as to older readers.

I had a gift card for a store and bought this book solely because it had won two awards. I had no idea what the book was about. I bought to place into my classroom library (5th grade). I saw that it was not written in prose (it's in free verse poetry) so I was hesitant about reading it. I decided I'd give the book a try anyway. I read this book over the summer and fell in love with it. It is a very powerful and touching story. This was by far and large the best of all of the books that I read over the summer. I would love to use this book for a read aloud or book study. I strongly recommend reading this book. It is truly phenomenal.

I loved this book! Every time I was interupted in the course of reading it I felt a sense of excitement to get back to it and see what would happen next. This book is written in a language that everyone can understand. I have been a Special Education Teacher for over a decade in New York City. Many of my students are from single parent families and face many obstacles to both academic success and social belonging. Often times I have found myslef in a classroom where there are students reading on 4-5 different grade levels in one class. Choosing books that all of the students will not only read but relate too is a very daunting task. "Inside Out and Back Again" is a story that all students can relate to at some level. The story Ha tells is one of triumph in the face of many obstacles. In this book students will read a story that reveals the complex relationships between siblings, the mixed emotions felt toward the "surviving/single" parent, the sacrifices made by every member of the family and the uanswered questions of a father very present in his absence. You don't have to be a survivor of the Vietnam War to relate to the emotions stirred by this book. I think my students will relate to Ha's feelings of inferiority when she moves to Alabama and finds she's not so "smart". Her frustration is one shared by struggling students everywhere. This is only one of the many layers revealed by the main character. With the current trend in Education being one that overlaps English Language Arts and Social Studies this book gives teachers an opportunity to introduce or reinforce students understanding of the fall out of the Vietnam War both in Vietnam and the United States. What I like most about this book is that it's not one of mere tragedy. It is uplifting, triumphant and in many areas laugh out loud funny. This is a book that every teacher should have in their collection. I would definitly recommend it for readers of any age and reading level.

Really good. Sometimes it hurt my heart but in the way that you hate what someone is going through.

I didn't realize I was choosing another novel "in verse" again. The style of writing pulls me in!

Inside Out & Back Again - Thanhha Lai

HA describes how happy her life was in VIETNAM. Then in 1975, Ha and her family had to escape Saigon. She describes the loss of a country to living in a new country, the U.S. HA also learns the painful lesson of discrimination, frustration with learning a new language and accepting herself for who she is.

We stumbled across this book at my daughter's school's book fair. I noticed the medal and that it was an immigrant's story, so I added it to our books to purchase without having cracked it open. I was surprised to find it was poetry, but my daughter has read this again and again over the last few years. She's now ten and still enjoys going back to this book.

I had the pleasure of reading Inside Out and Back Again during early stages of its development in addition to reading the completed, final book. The main character, a young girl dealing with a war tearing apart her country and her family, is stunningly real. She comes to life so immediately for the reader, I had the sense at times that she was glowing there on the pages. You will be amazed at how quickly you can be drawn into the character's life through these spare, wonderful descriptions.

What I would like to share with fellow readers is that this book is NOT just for young readers. This touching, painful story is so rich, so deeply meaningful, so gorgeously rendered, that I truly feel it's appropriate for every age level. I think this should be required reading for students ages 9-12 in public schools and that it could serve as a teaching tool for anyone wishing to discuss/illustrate issues of bullying. This character's experience of moving to the United States and living in a small southern town is a striking portrait of what it feels like to feel different and to be treated harshly by other children.

I also think this book is terrific reading for adults. You will truly savor each entry in the book. I found myself stopping every two or three pages to hold the book to my chest because each entry is such a unique treat. Lai's ability to breathe life into this character, to make the reader truly feel this character's pain, disorientation, sense of hope, and courage is truly amazing. I've never read a book like this before and truly hope that anyone reading this will get a copy of this book, savor it, then share it with the people they love. It's truly one of the most special books I've read in years.

Thanhha Lai has the ability to capture your attention and bring into her story written in prose. I laughed and cried Ha's memories, imagining what life was like from such an innocent yet astute young girl. Loved the story and the characters. So real and relatable!

The language and imagery alone are captivating. The story grabs your heart and leads you on a sensational journey with a girl you are sure to love. Be prepared to have your perspective of cross-cultural experiences turned on its head.

My 11-year-old son, who reads prolifically and is a "fantasy" guy reported, "this is the best book I've read in a long time." I'm happy to have him expand his genres and to love it!

"Inside Out & Back Again" written by Thanhha Lai is a collection of gripping poems about a young Vietnamese girl's experience during the Vietnam War. These poems show how war can slow a family down but never stop a family from sticking together. While reading this book the reader will be able to connect with all members of this remarkable family; from the oldest member straight down to the youngest. "Inside Out" is sure to make you laugh, cry and appreciate never having to experience such heartbreaking accounts. Lai's book is very well put together and awe-inspiring. I literally did not want to put it down. This book is truly fit for anyone between the ages of ten and 110 and is bound to teach a valuable lesson in what it means to be humble.

Having to leave her papaya tree in Vietnam was one of the toughest things that ten-year-old Ha had to do. Just as Ha's papaya tree grew under her care and began to flourish; Ha had to do the same in Alabama under the care of her family, new friends, a cowboy, and friendly neighbor. Ha's family fled their home in Vietnam in 1975 leaving behind their home, friends, family, and memories of a missing father.

Lai does an incredible job at telling a story that is seamlessly pieced together through a series of poems. Each poem can be seen as a paint stroke and at the end leaves the reader with a vibrant picture. Inside Out and Back Again really does take the reader along with Ha on a journey as she is taken inside out and back again.

I have never written a review before, but had to leave one for this book. It is beautifully written. The words are few but filled with so much meaning and emotion. My almost ten year old daughter and I are taking turns reading the chapters/entries. This is a new topic for my daughter and not a book she would have chosen for herself (more likely to read nancy drew or magical setting types of books). I read about it on bookhub. She has taken so much away from the reading experience and is already planning to reread it. Highly recommend!

Ha is angry and lonely. Her family has moved from Vietnam, where bombs explode in the distance and money is not only scarce, but buys much less then it used to, to escape the war. This book tells of her struggles in America and her life in Vietnam. It's either realistic fiction or historical fiction, so if you often read in those genres, here's a good book to try. It's set in the past, and some of it is set in a different country. It is told entirely in free-verse poems, which I think makes it even better and has a great effect on your sight of the matters. Thanhha Lai tells a wonderful story of change and freedom. I recommend this to everyone!!

This book is written simply, like a very intelligent child would write. It is beautifully written. The style pulls you in and you must continue reading to find out what happens. I absolutely loved it!

Inside Out and Back Again by Thanhha Lai is a wonderful book that follows a year of suffering and surviving with a 10 year old Vietnamese Immigrant. Ha, the main character, is a young girl who lives with her mother and three brothers in South Vietnamn during the Vietnam War. With her father gone, Ha and her family end up immigrating to Alabama. Ha suffers through learning Engish, being teased and not doing what she used to do in Vietiam. Thanhha Lai captures every little detail in this beautiful story. The book is written completely in verse which adds to its beautity. It is highly reccomended and appropriate for 10+ year olds.

I am tutoring two children whose family were transported to America after the fall of Saigon. They have a rich heritage to pass along to anyone who will listen. I so enjoyed this story which gives further insight to the struggles of acceptance of those who are different.

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I greatly enjoyed Inside Out and Back Again, by Thanhá Lei. The story is riveting... It's based in wartime South Vietnam, where Há and her family live in a comfortable house. When war falls upon them, they flee the country, and head to the USA, while their father is still there... somewhere... waiting
This book is really good, the characters are vibrant and exciting. The setting is really well described. I think that many people don't understand the hardships that Vietnamese refugees go through. Something that I really liked about this is that Há is strong and tough, also that this is written from first hand experience. That is why I like this.

This book is an amazing account of the life of a 10 year old girl and her family. You will emotionally connect with this family and feel what it must have been like to leave everything you know and land someplace scary.

I wish that everyone would read this book. We read so much about Viet Nam and the awful, awful war we fought there. This story makes you feel like you are there, seeing the devastation through the eyes of a child. The writing is PERFECT. It's won a million awards, and it deserves them all. READ THIS BOOK.

Inside Out and Back Again is a story of the power and importance of family. It appears to be a perhaps typical plot- end of a war, leaving your home, settling in a new country and culture, and overcoming obstacles. But, it is much more. Writing it as a poem means saying a great deal with each word chosen. This is much harder than writing a full description or narrative. The style makes the story even more complex. This book is masterfully written. It is beautiful and very powerful.

This is a wonderful story about a child's journey from and love for Vietnam. The descriptions and traditions described interesting enough to hold a child's attention or capture the heart of an adult.

Inside Out and Back Again was an AMAZING, touching story of a young, brilliant girl on a journey of the hard truth that is her life! I highly recommend this book and I'm very touched. This book is too great of a book to put into words! Read this book, because you won't regret it.

Inside Out and Back Again is about a girl named Ha. In the beginning she lived a perfectly normal life (except her father is missing) in Vietnam. The Vietnam got separated to North Vietnam and South Vietnam because of the Vietnam war. Ha’s uncle got them on a ship going to America. Her family gets a sponsor from Alabama. It is about her life in Alabama and seeing if her father gets back; Although Alabama is sort of rough; and she is very sad about her dad. She gets bullied in Alabama and is getting very worried about her dad.

This book was definitely an attention grabber throughout. I wasn't expecting the whole book to be written in prose but it was a pleasant change in pace. The way the poems flow really illustrate the perspective and emotions that are going through this ten year old girls head. The structure of each and every poem throughout the book has so much meaning and it is so fun to see what the author is trying to convey in each poem. I myself am a Vietnamese college student and I learned a lot about Vietnamese culture and the struggles of coming to America. The perspective evokes many emotions and feelings of sympathy for this ten year old girl. I would recommend this book to anyone.

this book keeps you on the edge of your seat and wanting to keep readin i have read this book twice and planned on taking a few days on reading it ,but both times ended up fineshing it the same day in the same period of time!

This is written for anyone that ever felt like they didn't fit in. I love reading historical auto biography's and this story set during the '70s and the fall of Saigon was very moving and beautifully written.

This book is wonderful in so many ways. It gives us a poignant picture of 10 year old refugee Ha and her family. Lai's comments on the English language are so touchingly witty, and so "close to home." Being a 5th grade teacher for a school full of English Language Learners, I laughed while I totally understood the young character's frustrations with our language. Lai succinctly writes so much STORY, such an amazing journey for the reader and Ha! I can't wait to use this book for a read aloud in my classroom. Bravo.

IT WAS SUCH A SIMPLE BOOK BUT STILL TORE AT YOUR HEART. HOPEFULLY IT OPENS UP PEOPLE'S HEARTS AND MINDS TO HOW HARD IT WOULD BE TO LEAVE YOUR HOMELAND. I THINK IT SHOULD BE A REQUIRED READING FOR SCHOOLS.

In the book Inside Out and Back Again by Thanhha Lai a girl named Há and her brothers Quang, Khoi, and Vu live in Saigon and is under attack. The northern vietnamese are laying siege upon the southern Vietnam and Saigon is also under attack. The family is thinking about moving elsewhere to a safer place while Há and Khoi want to stay for personal reasons.

I like this book because it is in an interesting format and the topic is easy to get into. I wouldn't really suggest this to younger kids because it is a little confusing. Although it is enjoyable it is a complex story full of action and you can reflect on it towards your real life. The fact the something like this story could happen is slightly unbelievable but true and exciting. This is why I like this book.

Wow! This book blew me away! I am reading it with my higher group of 4th graders and it doesn't disappoint. The rich context done in verse/poetry allowed for fabulous discussion within my Literature Circles. A MUST for every classroom.

brushcut is so totally wrong.This book is not just snippets of memorries.It is a life story of anyone
who has ever been made fun of,or someone who
just does'nt fit in.It is simply, a wonderfull reminder that even if sometimes we may feel like a muppet,we all can belong if we just be our selves.

I thought that it was a super easy read. But that it showed a side of the war that most don't think about. I would recommend this book to anyone (mainly 6th grade and up). I think that would be about the time the reader could understand what the book is about.

the book inside out and back again was a very touching story now knowing it is true. I feel bad for the victims of that war. A lot of people had to leave their home just to stay alive. Knowing that it is very sad. And I hope not a lot of people got hurt.

These poems broke my heart, yet were so heartwarming. I felt so bad for the hardships this family went through during the last years of the Vietnam war, and subsequent re- homing in the USA. I recommend this book to everyone.

I think this book tells about how life was during the Vietnam War. It gives readers a chance to experience what life was like during that time period in South Vietnam. It also tells how a family escaped from Vietnam to begin a new life in America.

I read this book with great interest as I have spent some time in Vietnam. I also have been amazed by the resilience of the Vietnamese people. I thought the style and the flow of the book was terrific. Once I started on the story I read it straight through. I believe that in addition the story is a labor of love and devotion. I encourage readers to indulge themselves and read this story.

This sad/sweet book is a first-person description of the Vietnam war and its influence on Vietnam's citizens, and the challenges of a refugee trying to fit in. I definitely recommend this book to anyone who loves a good read.

In Saigon, Vietnam stands a papaya tree owned by a girl whose life will soon be changed around. This girl's name is "Ha." She and her family heard that war was taking place but took no action until one night a loud boom woke their sleep. The war was only a second away. Shortly after, Ha and her family fled to America but the changes for them were indescribable. It took courage and love for them to make it through the year.

Sub-Problem #1: Ha and her family must escape Saigon before the communists take over and rule everything

Sub-Problem # 2: Ha and her family must survive the harsh conditions in the boat that takes them to America

Main Problem: Ha and her family learn new different ways and culture to make friends while working together to protect one another.

I think kids that like adventurous and courageous stories would love this book because Thanhha Lai shows brave decisions and actions described in a diary like format.

My favorite part was at the end during the Tet celebration resembling our own New Year's bash where she hopes for a good year.

I think girls ages 9-12 would love this book because it shows a strong bond between families and it is funny.

Review by Young Mensan Cathleen D., age 10

Such a wonderful book for young readers, adults, and especially those young readers with learning disabilities. The writer's pages look simple but are filled with beautiful images and language. I expect readers challenged by text will be drawn in by that simplicity and hooked on it's powerful story. "Inside Out & Back Again" is rich on so many levels. I can see librarians recommending it to young readers interested in world history, family upheaval, etc.

in my grade we had to pick a honnor book for a book report.i picked this book .this book iz amazing .it toched my heart.so many things happen in this book.my favorite book is called inside out and back again.

This is not a novel, just some interesting and engaging snippets of memories. The only way it is 277 pages is by putting only a few words per page. Gigantic line spacing and much blank space. There is no story line, just a sequences of memories of tumultuous times. Touching little booklet but not worth $8.99 by posing as a real book.

This is an autobiographical, fictionalized, relating of the experiences of a South Vietnamese girl who was relocated to the US after the fall of Saigon. The United States played probably the most major role in the dissolution of S. Vietnam. What resulted was horrific, and the author takes the opportunity of this book to vent her anger at America through verse. At least I think that is what's going on here. There are practically no positive experiences, only those of downtrodden refugees. There's an unwanted Christian baptism with buffoonish pastor, bland food, schoolyard bullies (the worst of whom she names "pink boy"), the brick through the window bit, patronizing teacher, hair pulling, and on and on and on. You see the word "hate" a good many times.

How you take this book really depends on what level of symbolism you attach to the events within. As an allegory of American abuse of South Vietnam by abandoning the war effort, it works, and is viscerally arresting. But, If it's meant to be taken literally as a refugee's abject mistreatment upon arriving in the United States, it is not believable and so it suffers greatly.

Grade-school teachers who assign this book need to proceed with great care as it is discussed and critiqued.

The writing style is poetic. I'm unschooled in that sort of criticism, so I will defer to others for an informed opinion.

It's not that I have anything against poetry, I just wasn't expecting it to be in this book. I have lived in the US my entire life and found I couldn't really relate to the main character. Her criticizing my country didn't help either.

I teach this book and was happy to see it in audio. Very disappointed when I listened to the sample as the reader mispronounces the main characters name. This is a major point in the story when Ha (pronounced Hi) attends school in Alabama and they make fun of her name. It seems the author would object. Sadly, I won't be purchasing.

This book isn't about the journey of a young girl moving from Vietnam to America during the Vietnam war. I personally was never a fan of the arts as a young kid and this book as kinda made me loath it a little more. I feel that this book would have been a lot more interesting if written as a novel and was based on a true story.

I liked this book a lot. It was very interesting. It's sad that a lot of people have to go through life like ha did. She was a very brave girl even when her father died and all these bad things happened to her.I think more people should read this book.

If you hate America you'll like this book. It's all about typical refugees taking asylum in America and then criticizing it. Worse than where they came from, I guess. A dull story for all but Obama-like folks that just can't quite stand this country.