Review by New York Times Review
literature in English for children and young adults offers few books about Vietnam and even fewer about the Vietnam War. Walter Dean Myers's 1988 novel "Fallen Angels" explored the costs borne by American soldiers sent to Vietnam with little knowledge about where they were and less about why they were there. The book deglorified war, exposing the sharp irony of sending young men, not yet old enough to vote and often marginalized by race or socioeconomic status, to defend ideals of democracy. They fought a war filled with "hours of boredom, seconds of terror"; if they came home again, it was not as angel warriors, but as fallen angels. Thanhha Lai's first book, "Inside Out and Back Again," published in 2011 and opening in 1975 just outside Saigon, chronicled another fall from innocence. Ha, her protagonist, hears "in the distance/bombs/explode like thunder" as "slashes lighten the sky" and "gunfire/falls like rain." Although Ha does not remember her father, who has been on military dispatch for nine of her 10 years, she seems safely embedded in close circles of family and friends. Ha's free-verse narration captures the candor of a trusting child who ponders birthdays, makes school friends and monitors her ripening papaya, and it was the right form to show how war fractures her childhood. Just as the papaya's "black seeds spill/like clusters of eyes,/wet and crying" when it's cut too soon, so is Ha's life hewed. The novel, which won a 2011 National Book Award and was a 2012 Newbery Honor book, depicts Ha's flight from Vietnam as Saigon falls; her crossing to the United States; and the challenges, hostilities and promises of starting anew in Alabama. Lai's newest novel, "Listen, Slowly," introduces another Vietnamese family marked by war. It skips the refugee years of cultural displacement and rebuilding to center on the family's first American-born generation. Although 12-year-old Mai's parents have given her a bicultural name - at school she is Mia - she insists on a "unicultural" identity. She plans to spend the summer hanging out in Laguna Beach with her best friend, maybe even having her first romance. After all, she thinks, given her academic excellence and stellar extracurriculars, doesn't she deserve some unfettered time? Her parents have something more constructive in mind: Mai will accompany her grandmother, Ba, to Vietnam. Now 79, Ba has new information about the fate of her cherished husband, who went missing during the war. Mai unwillingly starts her journey, wondering how she, still dependent on her parents, can possibly be a reliable companion to her frail grandmother. She counts the days until she can resume her normal American life. Initially, Mai's first-person narration makes her sound like an overindulged tween. Yet her voice also reveals a tender attentiveness that counters her egocentrism. She has a soft spot for Ba, and cherishes her smile: "Lines spread like outstretched fingers at the corners of her eyes and tiny spears circle her mouth the way I used to draw the sun's rays." Mai enters Vietnam as an outsider, irritated by the mosquitoes who love her sugary American blood and wary of her intolerant stomach. She becomes an insider drawn to the land, allured by savory pho broth, and deciding to stay just a bit longer. As Ba traces her lost love through the homeland they shared, Mai discovers the indelible lines of her Vietnamese heritage, including the refugee history from which her parents have sheltered her. With her stubborn, frog-loving, braceswearing new friend, Ut, and her guide, Anh Minh, who speaks English with a Texas accent, she navigates not only the chaotic streets and markets of Saigon and Hanoi, but also the network of relationships that have sustained the country. Their escapades surpass any excitement Laguna Beach once promised. As Mai listens to others, she acquires new language skills. As she watches others, she studies the culture and gains perspective on her own. As she laughs with others, she learns to laugh at herself. Lai inserts Ba's lyrical voice selectively into Mai's story. These heart-stopping passages further shift Mai's position from outsider to insider to, finally, truly bicultural, just as "Listen, Slowly" invites readers to see Vietnam from the inside out - and back again. CATHRYN M. MERCIER directs the Center for the Study of Children's Literature at Simmons College in Boston.
Copyright (c) The New York Times Company [May 10, 2015]
Review by Booklist Review
*Starred Review* Twelve-year-old Vietnamese American Mai is a Laguna Beach girl who can't wait to spend her summer at the beach getting to know HIM, the boy on whom she has a major crush. Imagine her horror, then, when her parents announce that she must, instead, travel to Vietnam with her grandmother, who will search for clues to the fate of her husband, who disappeared during what Mai thinks of as THE WAR. It'll be a chance to connect with her roots, her father tells her, to which she acidly thinks, Yeah, right . . . They're his roots, not mine. In fact, she admits, most of what she knows about Vietnam comes from PBS. Set to hate it in Vietnam, Mai is at first selfish and solipsistic, finding life there to be one body-crushing, must-do, crowd-throbbing, mind-heavy event after another. Gradually, however, she begins to change as she gets to know her bewilderingly large extended family and makes a friend of a distant cousin. Lai does a superb job of creating a memorable setting and populating it with fully developed, complex characters. Gracefully written and enriched by apposite figures of speech, Listen, Slowly is a superb, sometimes humorous, always thought-provoking coming-of-age story. HIGH-DEMAND HOT LIST: Lai's Inside Out and Back Again (2011) racked up the honors from both Newbery and National Book Award committees, and it also landed on the New York Times best-seller list, so her latest is sure to generate widespread anticipation.--Cart, Michael Copyright 2014 Booklist
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
All high-achieving 12-year-old Mai wants is to hang out at home in Laguna Beach with her best friend and her crush-that-shall-not-be-named: "This is the summer I've been waiting for my whole life," she explains. Instead, she is forced to accompany her father and her grandmother (Bà) to Vietnam to determine whether her grandfather (Ong) might still be alive. (He disappeared during "THE WAR," as Mai thinks of it, and has long been presumed dead.) Mai's self-interested annoyance gives way to fascination as she becomes swept up in her Vietnamese heritage, helps find out what happened to Ong, befriends a headstrong girl named Ut, and enjoys a deepening relationship with Bà. As she did in her National Book Award-winning Inside Out & Back Again, Lai offers a memorable heroine and cultural journey-ones that are clever near-opposites of those in that book, as Lai trades verse for prose and an immigrant's story for one of a girl fully immersed in American culture. The story capably stands on its own, yet considered alongside Inside Out, it's all the more rewarding. Ages 8-12. Agent: Rosemary Stimola, Stimola Literary Studio. (Feb.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by School Library Journal Review
Gr 6-8-Mai (though at school in Laguna Beach she's known as "Mia") is a seventh grade valley girl who is expected to accompany her grandmother on an all-summer visit to Vietnam. Bà fled Vietnam with her children during the Fall of Saigon, and doesn't know what happened to her husband, Mai's grandfather. Occasionally using her rudimentary Vietnamese, Mai tells the story (grudgingly adding SAT vocabulary sent daily by her mother) as she frets over her oily T-zone, her crush back home, bloodthirsty mosquitoes, and OMG: only dial-up Internet! At the same time, Mai revels in the sights and tastes of crowded cities and rural villages, eventually embracing even awkward traditions as she comes to appreciate her heritage. Narrator Lulu Lam beautifully manages both the ending uptick of valley-girl inflections, and the tonal variations of Vietnamese. The writing is excellent, and the narration rises in every way to the material. This book has abundant educational points that make it good for classroom use, yet it never feels heavy-handed as it explores the cultural points. Funny, heartfelt and full of depth, this modern narrative is seamlessly wrapped in a lush cloak of history and culture. Mai and Bà's journey will captivate listeners. VERDICT An excellent multicultural title for social studies or history classes. Suggest to fans of authors Mitali Perkins and Lisa Yee.-Maggie Knapp, Trinity Valley School, Fort Worth, TX © Copyright 2015. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Horn Book Review
This second novel from National Book Award winner La.i (Inside Out and Back Again, rev. 3/11) grabs readers from the start. California girl Mai is on a plane, accompanying Ba, her grandmother, on a trip to Vietnam. Mai, who planned to spend her summer at the beach flirting with "HIM," the boy she has a crush on, is furious. Her dad says Ba needs her support -- a detective has claimed he has news about Ong, Ba's husband, who went missing during the Vietnam War -- but the self-absorbed tween is still outraged. La.i convincingly shows Mai's slow transformation from spoiled child to someone who can look beyond herself with compassion. Mai's change of heart is believable, moving in fits and starts and taking its own sweet time; she retains her sarcastic sense of humor, but her snark gradually loses its bite, and she begins laughing at herself more than others. The heartbreaking sorrow of Ba's, and Vietnam's, past is eased some by the novel's comical elements (a Vietnamese teen who learned English in the U.S. -- and drawls like a Texan; a cousin who carries her enormous pet bullfrog with her everywhere). The detailed descriptions of Mai's culture shock and acclimation bring the hot and humid Vietnamese setting, rural and urban, to life. Her strong-willed personality makes her an entertaining narrator; readers will happily travel anywhere with Mai. jennifer m. brabander (c) Copyright 2015. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review
A trip to Vietnam did not figure in Laguna, California, girl Mai Le's summer plans!Twelve-year-old Mai (Mia at school) was looking forward to a summer at the beach with her bestie, Montana, trying to catch the eye of HIM (a boy from school), but she's forced on to a plane to keep her grandmother, B, company on a trip of indeterminate length. ng, B's husband, went missing during the Vietnam War, and a detective claims to have found a man who knows something about ng. Mai and B stay in B's home village, while Mai's doctor father heads into the mountains to run a clinic. Mai's Vietnamese is rusty, and only teenage boy Minh speaks English (but with a Texas accent). The heat, the mosquitoes...even the maybe-relatives are torture. Out of touch with all things American, Mai worries that Montana may put the moves on HIM; and the only girl in the village her age, Ut, is obsessed with frogs. For her sophomore effort, Newbery Honor author Lai delivers a funny, realistic tale of family and friendship and culture clashes. The subtle humor of clunky translations of Vietnamese into English and vice versa are a great contrast to Mai's sharp and sometimes-snarky observations that offer a window into Vietnamese village life and language. A touching tale of preteen angst and translation troubles. (Fiction. 9-12) Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
