Overview
When a Vietnamese girl receives a visit from her half-American aunt, brimming curiosity — and cultural misperceptions — come to the fore.Every day nine-year-old Binh sells fruit and sodas to the girls whose families can afford to send them to school, and every night she returns to her one-room home to share a simple meal with her family. Everything changes, however, when her grandmother tells Binh she had a daughter during the war, a child who was sent away to America as a little girl. Now Di Hai — Binh’s aunt, a teacher — is coming to visit, and Binh can’t help but wonder what luxurious gifts she will bring.
Yet when Di Hai arrives, there are so many confusing things about her: she’s taller than the men, she’s not married, and her presents are mere trinkets that could have come from Third Aunt’s tourist shop! Still, Binh secretly hopes Di Hai will take her to live in America. Can her aunt live up to her expectations? Carolyn Marsden tells Binh’s story with warmth and sensitivity as she ushers readers into the life and dreams of a young Vietnamese girl.
Synopsis
When a Vietnamese girl receives a visit from her half-American aunt, brimming curiosity — and cultural misperceptions — come to the fore.
Every day nine-year-old Binh sells fruit and sodas to the girls whose families can afford to send them to school, and every night she returns to her one-room home to share a simple meal with her family. Everything changes, however, when her grandmother tells Binh she had a daughter during the war, a child who was sent away to America as a little girl. Now Di Hai — Binh’s aunt, a teacher — is coming to visit, and Binh can’t help but wonder what luxurious gifts she will bring.
Yet when Di Hai arrives, there are so many confusing things about her: she’s taller than the men, she’s not married, and her presents are mere trinkets that could have come from Third Aunt’s tourist shop! Still, Binh secretly hopes Di Hai will take her to live in America. Can her aunt live up to her expectations? Carolyn Marsden tells Binh’s story with warmth and sensitivity as she ushers readers into the life and dreams of a young Vietnamese girl.
Publishers Weekly
Marsden (The Gold-Threaded Dress) once again mingles two cultures, but less successfully here than in her previous books. The story unfolds primarily through the third-person perspective of nine-year-old Binh, who sells fruit and soda from a cart in her Vietnamese village. In the second chapter, she learns that her maternal grandmother, Ba Ngoai, has another daughter, Thao, fathered by an American soldier. To save Thao's life after the Communists won the Vietnam War, Ba Ngoai sent her to America 30 years earlier, when the child was five. Now Thao is coming to visit, and Binh and her family imagine all the presents this presumably rich American will bring. But Thao brings only several small gifts, such as a pair of bookends-put to use as doorstops since the family owns no books. While in her previous books Marsden integrated exotic cultural details smoothly into the text, here the narrative turns jarringly expository at times ("The highway was lined with the red and yellow satin banners of the Communist government. Some banners had a yellow star, others a hammer and sickle"). Still, Binh witnesses some poignant scenes, such as when Thao confides that she initially had a difficult time in the U.S., "I wasn't Vietnamese anymore... And I didn't feel American either." The characters-save Binh-may remain curiously at a distance, but Marsden brings her tale to a satisfying close. Ages 8-12. (Mar.) Copyright 2007 Reed Business Information.
Editorials
Publishers Weekly
Marsden (The Gold-Threaded Dress) once again mingles two cultures, but less successfully here than in her previous books. The story unfolds primarily through the third-person perspective of nine-year-old Binh, who sells fruit and soda from a cart in her Vietnamese village. In the second chapter, she learns that her maternal grandmother, Ba Ngoai, has another daughter, Thao, fathered by an American soldier. To save Thao's life after the Communists won the Vietnam War, Ba Ngoai sent her to America 30 years earlier, when the child was five. Now Thao is coming to visit, and Binh and her family imagine all the presents this presumably rich American will bring. But Thao brings only several small gifts, such as a pair of bookends-put to use as doorstops since the family owns no books. While in her previous books Marsden integrated exotic cultural details smoothly into the text, here the narrative turns jarringly expository at times ("The highway was lined with the red and yellow satin banners of the Communist government. Some banners had a yellow star, others a hammer and sickle"). Still, Binh witnesses some poignant scenes, such as when Thao confides that she initially had a difficult time in the U.S., "I wasn't Vietnamese anymore... And I didn't feel American either." The characters-save Binh-may remain curiously at a distance, but Marsden brings her tale to a satisfying close. Ages 8-12. (Mar.) Copyright 2007 Reed Business Information.Children's Literature -
Nine-year-old Binh sold fruit on a cart in the streets as part of her contribution to her family's income. It was forty years after the Vietnam war ended and her family was still struggling to survive. Her father and brother worked in a motorcycle repair shop, her Third Aunt sold novelties to the tourists, and her cousin Cuc, helped in the shop. Binh's biggest customers were the girls whose families were rich enough for them to go to school. She and Cuc made fun of those girls, because they could not be one of them. One evening after the family dinner, Binh's grandmother announced that her long lost First Daughter was returning from America. Grandmother explained to the family that the girl's father was American and she gave her to the soldiers when they left Vietnam, in hopes she would have a better life in the homeland of her father. If she stayed in Vietnam, people would have killed her. When Di Thao finally arrived, the family's expectations were shattered. All they knew of America was from the movies. Di Thao, wasn't like the movie stars. She dressed simply and brought only one bag, not the many material gifts the family had grown to expect. The family showed Di Thao honor, but she found it hard to fit into her family's culture. She chose to sleep in the yard, away from the extended family. She didn't eat all the prepared foods and she didn't understand their ways. Binh had expected that her Aunt would take her back to America, but Di Thao explained to her that she could not. She tried to show Binh that leaving one's own culture was hard. The ending brings a degree of satisfaction to all.School Library Journal
Gr 3–5
Vietnamese and American cultural assumptions are woven seamlessly into the plot in this accessible and inviting story. Nine-year-old Binh is fascinated to know that she has an American aunt, who at age five was sent to the U.S. as part of Operation Babylift. Now Di, 35, comes to Vietnam to visit her birth mother and other relatives. Binh knows that all Americans are rich and imagines her aunt taking her home with her to live in the house that looks so enormous in photos. Binh, too poor to attend school, is embarrassed to tell her aunt that she helps her family eke out a living by selling fruit from a cart, and Di knows little of Vietnamese culture. With some final, brave efforts at communicating, Binh finally helps Di sort out what is and isn't offensive in Vietnam, and the tension is dispelled. Direct language, a balance of simple and complex sentences, and a generous use of white space will pull in younger readers, giving them more depth than is typical in early chapter books. Despite unfamiliar words and a rather large cast of characters, the story of Binh and her family shines through the spare text, creating a welcome chance to experience another culture. Pair this with Andrea Warren's Escape from Saigon (Farrar, 2004) for a nonfiction look at the same topic.
—Faith BrautigamCopyright 2006 Reed Business Information.