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INTERMEDIATE FICTION
Lai, Thanhhà

When Clouds Touch Us

256 pp. | HarperCollins | May, 2023 | Trade ISBN 9780063047006 $18.99 | Ebook ISBN 9780063047020 $11.99
(2) 4-6 In this moving, empathetic follow-up to Li's National Book Award–winning and Newbery-honored verse novel Inside Out & Back Again (rev. 3/11), we follow another year of changes for Ha, now twelve, and her family, who are Vietnamese refugees. Li's vibrant first-person poems reflect her protagonist's anxiety and confusion as she's uprooted once again. Her mother moves the family from Alabama to Fort Worth, Texas, for a higher-paying factory job and the dream of purchasing a home. Adolescence looms, too: Ha gets her first period at school, and she's mortified by conversations about boys and kissing. Yet she finds opportunities to grow and navigate her dual identities (what to "Absorb/Ignore"). She becomes more independent, starts a flower-selling business, and even questions the Vietnam War. The 1976 setting--America's bicentennial--reinforces the idea that Ha and her family's experiences are just as American as anyone's. Strongly recommended for fans of the first book and readers interested in realistic, hardscrabble immigrant stories.
Reviewer: Michelle Lee | Horn Book Magazine Issue: May, 2023

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