Reading Response: Historical and Contemporary Realism

 

Inside Out and Back Again, a Newbery Honor Award Winner told in verse, is a story about survival and finding oneself during a significant historical conflict.  A young girl named Ha is experiencing the Vietnam War.  The story is told in chronological order with the first section of the book titled “Saigon” which tells the story of Ha’s family as they see their lives begin to deteriorate in South Vietnam.  The second part moves on to “At Sea” where Ha and her family make a narrow escape and are provided refuge on a boat that moves them to a safer place.  While focusing on survival on the boat–with hundreds of others and meager rations–Ha learns that her homeland no longer exists.  Ha’s new life finds her in America–in the section titled “Alabama”-- learning the ways of Americans’ food, education, and people that at first completely confuse her, but then begin to shape who she becomes.  This is a story about survival, but literally in Ha escaping war, and figuratively in that she must emotionally survive significant change in her new life in America. 

While told in a fictional, first person narrative, the setting and events are accurately portrayed so the reader can understand the hardships of refugees fleeing from war-torn countries and the difficulty it is to acclimate to a new land and culture.  This text is told in what seems like a diary format that the protagonist creates that spans just over a year from when she leaves her homeland to when she finds comfort in her new land.  The richness of detail about Vietnamese culture is evident in the pages, and readers can connect with Ha as they, too, can identify with important aspects of their culture.  Although set in 1970, the conflict Ha finds herself in–finding who she truly is–and the acclimation to a new life is more meaningful than the brief descriptions of the setting.   While the conflict is at the forefront, the plot does move quickly enough to engage readers, but the characters are not developed enough to connect them to the readers. 

This novel is very easy to read and understand–there are simple sentences and short words/phrases throughout that can help a reader focus more on the conflict and story than on decoding words or understanding unfamiliar ideas. 

Lai, Thanhha. Inside Out and Back Again. Harper Collins. 2011. 288 pages. Tr. $9.99. ISBN 978-0061962783.

The Pandemic of 2020 was significant to people around the world, and this fictional novel, Rez Dogs,  told in verse, is set during the time of the pandemic when the main character, Malian, finds herself on a reservation with her grandparents because of the stay in place order.  During this time, Malian connects with a lonely reservation dog that becomes her friend and ally during this time in her life.  While it is evident that people are struggling with the laws of the pandemic, the conflict within the story, as well as character development, gets lost in this novel because of the significant amount of cultural details.  This makes the story easy to move through because it lacks depth, but on the other hand it also confuses the reader because of the lack of details about the Native American culture.  Told in third person narration, the main character is at the forefront of the story with minor characters such as friends, grandparents, the “rez dog,” also mentioned.  While the title of the novel suggests a significant importance to the dog, the dog is periodically seen within the story as a “protector,” without any major role. 

Since this novel is one of contemporary fiction and recently published, readers ages 8-12, the main audience of this novel, can still remember the barriers put in place during the time of the pandemic.  However, there is not enough detail about the pandemic itself to have an effect of this time period on readers years from now; it is more about life and culture on a reservation.  Overall, this novel does not have an engaging plot because of the lack of detail and the style in which it is written.  Further, there is not a theme that is at the forefront that shows the main character resolving a conflict of any kind.  It’s also difficult for a reader to visualize the characters or setting since both elements are not described in detail. Stylistically, a younger reader will find this book easy to read because it’s told in verse and the font is significantly larger than a chapter book would be for an upper elementary school student. 

Bruchac, Joseph. Rez Dogs. Penguin Random House, LLC. 2021. 192 pages. Tr. $6.99. ISBN 978-0593326213.