Too Young to Escape

October 1, 2018
When 4-year-old Van wakes one morning in her home in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, her mother and siblings are gone. They have fled the country without a word, leaving a heartsick Van and her grandmother behind.The year is 1981. The communists are in power, and Van's family has not only lost everything, but has come under suspicion for helping the Americans during the Vietnam War. B� Ngoai, Van's grandmother, explains that the journey to find Van's father and oldest sister in Canada was too dangerous for little Van, but she will be reunited with them someday. With simple but engaging language, Skrypuch (The War Below, 2018, etc.) recounts Van Ho's true story of her lonely and hard life in Vietnam during the years she was separated from her family. Skrypuch offers readers myriad opportunities to identify with Van, who navigates school, friendship, bullying, and poverty, while also giving them insight into less-common American experiences such as political oppression and asylum. The story covers four years of Van's life, including her reunion with parents and siblings in Canada and the immediate culture shock of arriving. Endmatter (photographs and interviews with other family members) provides more context and emotional insight. The book is labeled nonfiction, but Skrypuch's author's note describes the process of filling in gaps in the adult Ho's memories of her decades-old trauma.This illuminating chapter book respects an often overlooked demographic, providing transitioning readers a truthful yet age-appropriate introduction to big issues that still affect people to this day. (Historical fiction. 7-11)

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November 1, 2018
Grades 4-7 Skrypuch continues her collaboration with the Ho family in telling the stories of their escape from Vietnam after the war. Here the youngest daughter, Van Ho, pieces together memories of being the one who was left behind at the age of four. We learn that Van's mother had an agonizing decision to make when it came to saving her family: whether or not to leave the youngest with her grandmother, as the trip was too perilous for her. As a work of fragmented and painful memories from the time Van was between the ages of four and eight, the narrative is impressively credible, capturing her feelings of confused abandonment, visceral descriptions of her life in Ho Chi Minh City, and gradual adjustment to being separated from her immediate family. Also well integrated are the family's hardened cynicism towards the communist government and their determination to forge on despite poverty and corruption. Family photographs and appended interviews with both Van's parents add a particular poignancy to her narrative.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2018, American Library Association.)

January 1, 2019
In a short and poignant narrative, Ho tells how, at age four, she was left behind in Vietnam while her family fled to Canada in 1981. Decidedly anti-communist, the tale is filled with details about school, hard work, hunger, and the sorrow Ho felt until being reunited with her family when she was eight. Appended are family photos, a coauthor's note, and interviews with Ho and her parents.

(Copyright 2019 by The Horn Book, Incorporated, Boston. All rights reserved.)