{"id":12544,"date":"2011-10-05T06:00:06","date_gmt":"2011-10-05T12:00:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs2.davenportlibrary.com\/reference\/?p=12544"},"modified":"2011-09-21T12:58:14","modified_gmt":"2011-09-21T18:58:14","slug":"a-book-i-can-read-inside-out-and-back-again","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.davenportlibrary.com\/reference\/a-book-i-can-read-inside-out-and-back-again\/","title":{"rendered":"A book I can read inside out and back again"},"content":{"rendered":"

Two things I usually do not like to read about: war and hot places. And yet I found myself picking up Inside Out & Back Again<\/em> by Thanhha Lai<\/strong><\/a> everytime I walked past the New J Fiction shelf. I could tell by the description on the back of the book that the story was about a young girl living in South Vietnam right before the fall of Saigon, thus, it was about war in a hot place. Yet, the praise on the back cover also demanded that I “read it slowly to savor the delicious language” and cheer on “a protagonist so strong, so loving, and vivid [that fellow author] longed to hand her a wedge of freshly cut papaya.” I asked myself one question: Have I ever eaten a papaya? I don’t think so, but after reading this book I am convinced that papaya is now my favorite fruit, and that Inside Out & Back Again<\/em><\/strong><\/a> has my vote for the Newbery Award this year.<\/p>\n

This story, told in verse, spends one year with ten-year-old H\u00e0 as her family undergoes the transition from their war-torn, unsettled home in South Vietnam to the the unknown and sometimes cruel world of being refugees in the United States. Ha’s environment is something I have never experienced, but her spirit and humor remind me of many of my kindred fictional friends from Ramona Quimby<\/strong><\/a> to Allie Finkle<\/strong><\/a>. Thus, she enabled me to live a piece of our world’s history that, until now, had really only been presented to me through dry history books or masculine, heated war literature.<\/p>\n

H\u00e0’s story in heartbreaking, but not without hope and smiles. An excerpt from Inside Out & Back Again<\/em> by Thanhha Lai<\/strong><\/a>:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Quiet Decision<\/p>\n

Dinnertime
\nI help Mother
\npeel sweet potatoes
\nto stretch the rice.<\/p>\n

I start to chop off
\na potato’s end
\nas wide as
\na thumbnail,
\nthen decide
\nto slice off
\nonly a sliver.<\/p>\n

I am proud
\nof my ability
\nto save
\nuntil I see
\ntears
\nin Mother’s
\ndeep eyes.<\/p>\n

You deserve to grow up
\nwhere you don’t worry about
\nsaving half a bite
\nof sweet potato.<\/em><\/p>\n

April 19<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Two things I usually do not like to read about: war and hot places. And yet I found myself picking up Inside Out & Back Again by Thanhha Lai everytime I walked past the New J Fiction shelf. I could tell by the description on the back of the book[Read more]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[10,1,8],"tags":[1733,1735,933,1734,1284],"class_list":["post-12544","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-books","category-reference","category-staff-picks","tag-inside-out-and-back-again","tag-mock-newbery","tag-refugees","tag-thanhha-lai","tag-vietnam"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pd0CXx-3gk","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.davenportlibrary.com\/reference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12544","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.davenportlibrary.com\/reference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.davenportlibrary.com\/reference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.davenportlibrary.com\/reference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.davenportlibrary.com\/reference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12544"}],"version-history":[{"count":33,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.davenportlibrary.com\/reference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12544\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13309,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.davenportlibrary.com\/reference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12544\/revisions\/13309"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.davenportlibrary.com\/reference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12544"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.davenportlibrary.com\/reference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12544"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.davenportlibrary.com\/reference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12544"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}