Inside Out & Back Again

Inside Out & Back Again
By Thanhha Lai
ISBN 0061962783
Historical Fiction

After her father has been missing in action for nine years during the Vietnam War, 10-year-old Ha flees with her mother and three older brothers. Her once simple life is turned upside down and inside out. Traveling first by boat, the family reaches a tent city in Guam, moves on to Florida, and is finally connected with sponsors in Alabama, where Ha finds refuge but also cruel rejection, especially from mean classmates. The story of Ha and her family is written in accessible, short free-verse poems or diary entries. Ha’s immediate narrative describes her mistakes—both humorous and heartbreaking—with grammar, customs, and dress; for example she wears a flannel nightgown to school. Readers will be moved by Ha’s sorrow as they recognize the anguish of being the outcast who spends lunchtime hiding in the bathroom. Eventually, Ha does get back at the sneering kids who bully her at school, and she finds help adjusting to her new life from a kind teacher who lost a son in Vietnam. The elemental details of Ha’s struggle dramatize a foreigner’s experience of alienation. And even as she begins a new life, there is no easy comfort: her father is still gone. Based on Lai’s personal experience, this novel captures a child-refugee’s struggle with change, and the brutalities that refuges endure once they are resettled. Although the pain is not physical, it still has major affects on the person. Through the story, Lai, creates an emotional connection for any reader who has been picked on or teased or felt different.