With the school year approaching, I am reading the recent new releases. A couple multicultural titles have caught my attention: Words in the Dust by Trent Reedy and Inside Out and Back Again by Thanhha Lai. Both have a ring of authenticity and truth.
Words in the Dust was written after Trent Reedy was stationed in Afghanistan with the US Army in 2004-2005. He saw a young girl with a cleft lip that was so deformed her teeth were jutting almost straight out of her mouth and her nose was misshapen. She could not drink without drooling and people shunned her because of her physical challenge. Reedy was upset by the girl’s condition and the lack of medical help. He and his friends set out to provide the care she needed.
Out of this experience came Reedy’s first book that is told from the girl’s point of view. It shows Zulaikha’s overwhelming desire to be “normal” and her family’s distrust of the strange Americans who often offend her people with their lack of knowledge of the culture and religion. Along side this quest, runs her desire to learn to read the Afghan poetry her mother had so dearly loved. This is a heartwarming and informative book.
My second choice, a novel in verse, is Inside Out and Back Again. The author, Thanhha Lai, tells her own refugee story of flight from war-torn Saigon. She expresses her love of the country and her life there. The reader gets a unique insider’s view of the beauty and charm of Vietnam. Then the main character, Ha, must flee with her mother and brothers. They settle in Alabama where they have a sponsor whom Ha imagines must ride horses and have a ranch. He does not, but he does help them find a home and jobs. Ha attends school where she is bullied. Although she was at the top of her class in Vietnam, she now feels dumb, dumb, dumb. When she finally meets a neighbor, a retired teacher, who helps her navigate the pitfalls of a new and strange culture, Ha gains confidence and makes friends.
This book opens our eyes to a new point of view about our country and makes us contemplate the difficulty of being the newcomer. Through Ha’s eyes, we see what it would be like to be that stranger in this strange land.
Roaring Reads Reviews 