Module 14: Inside Out and Back Again

Module 14: Inside Out and Back Again

   

Book Summary:

          In this narrative, verse book, the author describes a girl’s childhood as she grows up during the Vietnam War. The girl is forced to leave her familiar home in Saigon and immigrate to Alabama.  Ha faces many challenges as she adjusts to life in Alabama. Ha describes teasing from classmates, learning English, and her families struggles to live in a place where they do not feel welcome and accepted. 

APA Reference of the Book:

Lai, T.  (2011). Inside out and back again. New York, NY: Scholastic.

Impressions:  

          I enjoyed the imagery in the story. I found this book to be very touching. Lai does an excellent job describing Ha’s emotions as she deals with the experience of leaving her home in Vietnam to live in Alabama.  The reader empathizes with Ha’s fears and homesickness.  I love the description of Ha’s papaya tree and her misery and disappointment of leaving her tree behind after she cared and nurtured the tree for so long.  I enjoyed reading about the relationship Ha has with her new teacher, Miss Scott.

         

Reviews:

From Bulletin of the Center for Children’s Books-

Lai, Thanhha Inside Out & Back Again. Harper/HarperCollins, 2011 [272p] ISBN 978-0-06-196278-3 $15.99 Reviewed from galleys Ad Gr. 5-7 Things have been tough for ten-year-old Hà, whose father was declared MIA with the Vietnamese navy when she was just a baby; now her family, on the brink of certain poverty, decides to flee Saigon, just barely getting out before the city falls to the Communists in April of 1975. They end up in Alabama (by way of Guam and Florida), where they are sponsored by an American family and given a chance to begin a new life. There Hà learns that there are different kinds of misery: while her family now has food and shelter, they are largely unwelcomed in their community and she is constantly bullied at school. In the end, a handful of sympathetic neighbors take up for the family, Hà learns to stand up for herself, her mother accepts and begins to mourn for Hà’s father’s likely death, and things begin to improve. In this free-verse narrative based on her own life, Lai is sparing in her details, painting big pictures with few words and evoking abundant visuals. There is unfortunately very little context provided for the story, so that readers not familiar with the basic March 2011 • 333 facts of the Vietnam War may struggle to understand the story’s trajectory. The earlier part of the novel is definitely stronger; the details of the family’s inescapable plunge into poverty and of Hà’s mother’s unbearable sadness at the absence of her husband pack a far greater emotional punch than Hà’s troubles at school. Still, young readers, especially those new to this country, may relate to Hà’s efforts and cheer on her success in overcoming the challenges. HM

Morrison, H. (March 2011).  [Review of Inside Out and Back Again by Thanhha Lai.] Bulletin of the Center for Children’s Books 64(7), 332-333. Retrieved from ProQuest at http://libproxy.library.unt.edu:2087/docview/857414277/fulltextPDF/651E82713AE9460DPQ/32?accountid=7113

In the Library:

         

          This book would make a great introduction to narrative and free-verse writing in poetry.  This book lends itself well to using imagery in poetry.  When third and fourth grade teachers are planning their poetry units, I could use this book in the library to introduce elements of poetry.  Each student or group of students could be assigned a few pages, and the students could find use of imagery and metaphors in each poem. Students could draw pictures of the images they think the poem is portraying. Students could practice writing some metaphors and illustrating the metaphors.