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YA
During the 1975 fall of Saigon, twelve-year-old Hắng and her brother impersonate orphans to join Operation Babylift, but the refugee workers take only five-year-old Linh. Six years later, after a horrific boat trip (revealed in tense flashbacks), Hắng arrives in Texas to find her brother. Lại represents Hắng's English words phonetically, forcing the reader to become both listener and decipherer, an equally engaged but sometimes frustrated partner in her quest for "mai bờ-ró-đờ [my brother]."
Reviewer: Betty Carter
| Horn Book Magazine Issue:
September, 2019