Inside Out and Back Again

Inside Out and Back Again

Written by: Thanhha Lai

Published by: HarperCollins Children’s Books, a division of HarperCollins Publishers

Reading Level: Ages 8 and up

Inside Out and Back Again is a Newberry Honor Book Award Winner. The Newberry Award Medal was named for eighteenth-century British bookseller John Newbery. It is awarded annually to the author of the most distinguished contribution to American literature for children. This book is a novel told in verse.  I like that this book is told in verse because this can help children understand that poems don’t have to be about rhyming.  This book also fits the month of April because April is the month of poetry.  I can see teachers reading this book with their class during the month of April to help their students understand poetry better.  This book is the touching story of a girl’s year of change, grief, dreams, and healing as she travels from one country to another.  Ha is practically changing lives when she has to flee with her mother and three brothers from Saigon to the United States.  This story takes place from the height of the Vietnam War.  Ha’s father has been missing for nine years during this war, and in time everything is getting worse. Her family knows it is best for them to flee but they don’t want to in hopes that Ha’s father is still alive and will come to find them eventually.  How will he be able to find them if they no longer live in their home? When her family finally flees from Saigon they travel by boat and eventually end up in Florida, and then they finally end up in Alabama with sponsors.  This is where Ha ends up staying.  She ends up in a school where all her classmates are mean to her, and she ends up eating lunch in the bathroom.  Many readers will enjoy reading Ha’s tale told in verse of her struggles to fit into this new culture where she is supposedly safe but tormented constantly until she finally decides to get back at the bully’s who have been making her life difficult.  Ii really enjoyed this story.  I found it funny and sad at the same time.  Ha had so many things to overcome and you know her life could not have been easy.  I recommend this book to anyone who would be interested in reading it and I also see this book as being a perfect read in the classroom after learning about the Vietnam War.