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2024 Bookish Books Reading Challenge (Hosted by Yours Truly)

My Progress:


30 / 30 books. 100% done!

2024 Literary Escapes Challenge

- Alabama (1)
- Alaska (1)
- Arizona (1)
- Arkansas (1)
- California (11)
- Colorado (1)
- Connecticut (2)
- Delaware (1)
- Florida (3)
- Georgia (4)
- Hawaii (1)
- Idaho (2)
- Illinois (4)
- Indiana (4)
- Iowa (1)
- Kansas (1)
- Kentucky (2)
- Louisiana (1)
- Maine (1)
- Maryland (1)
- Massachusetts (4)
- Michigan (1)
- Minnesota (2)
- Mississippi (1)
- Missouri (1)
- Montana (1)
- Nebraska (1)
- Nevada (2)
- New Hampshire (1)
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- New York (10)
- North Carolina (4)
- North Dakota (1)
- Ohio (3)
- Oklahoma (2)
- Oregon (2)
- Pennsylvania (2)
- Rhode Island (1)
- South Carolina (1)
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- Tennessee (1)
- Texas (4)
- Utah (4)
- Vermont (2)
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- West Virginia (1)
- Wisconsin (1)
- Wyoming (2)
- Washington, D.C.* (2)

International:
- Argentina (1)
- Australia (6)
- Austria (1)
- Bolivia (1)
- Canada (3)
- China (2)
- England (26)
- France (2)
- Ghana (1)
- India (1)
- Indonesia (1)
- Ireland (4)
- Italy (1)
- Poland (2)
- Russia (2)
- Scotland (3)
- The Netherlands (1)

My Progress:


51 / 51 states. 100% done!

2024 Historical Fiction Reading Challenge

My Progress:


52 / 50 books. 104% done!

2024 POPSUGAR Reading Challenge


36 / 50 books. 72% done!

Booklist Queen's 2024 Reading Challenge

My Progress:


52 / 52 books. 100% done!

2024 52 Club Reading Challenge

My Progress:


51 / 52 books. 98% done!

2024 Build Your Library Reading Challenge

My Progress:


37 / 40 books. 93% done!

2024 Pioneer Book Reading Challenge


18 / 40 books. 45% done!

2024 Craving for Cozies Reading Challenge

My Progress:


25 / 25 cozies. 100% done!

2024 Medical Examiner's Mystery Reading Challenge

2024 Mystery Marathon Reading Challenge

My Progress


5 / 26.2 miles (4th lap). 19% done!

Mount TBR Reading Challenge

My Progress


51 / 100 books. 51% done!

2024 Pick Your Poison Reading Challenge

My Progress:


98 / 109 books. 90% done!

Around the Year in 52 Books Reading Challenge

My Progress


52 / 52 books. 100% done!

Disney Animated Movies Reading Challenge

My Progress


139 / 165 books. 84% done!

The 100 Most Common Last Names in the U.S. Reading Challenge

My Progress:


88 / 100 names. 88% done!

The Life Skills Reading Challenge

My Progress:


38 / 80 skills. 48% done!
Sunday, January 31, 2016

Poignant, Heartbreaking Inside Out and Back Again Based on Author's Unique Immigrant Experience

(Image from Barnes & Noble)

Kim Há loves Saigon, where she's lived for all of her ten years.  She adores the bustling marketplace, all of the city's familiar sights and tantalizing scents.  Most of all, she loves her mama and her papaya tree.  But as the violence of war tears Saigon apart, it becomes necessary for the family to flee.  As Kim sails across the sea, bounces from refugee camp to refugee camp, finally landing in a strange land called Alabama, she experiences every emotion—anxiety, fear, wonder, and excitement.

Life in America is vastly different from Kim's experience in Vietnam.  There, she felt smart.  Here, people think she's dumb just because she can't speak English.  There, she had lots of family nearby.  Here, she's lonely.  There, she ate familiar food, chatted in her native tongue, understood her world.  Here, everything is different, everything is new.  Does she have any hope of fitting in?  Will America—a place so foreign—ever feel like home?

Based on the author's own experience as a child, Inside Out and Back Again by Thanhha Lai offers a uniquely authentic perspective on immigration.  Written in verse, it's a spare narrative, but one that's nevertheless vivid, poignant, and heartbreaking.  It's a story that will resound with anyone who's ever felt out of place, while teaching all of us a valuable lesson about acceptance.  Inside Out and Back Again proves that everyone has a story worth knowing—if only we'll take the time to listen.  A beautiful, award-winning book, this poignant novel-in-verse should not be missed.

(Readalikes:  Reminds me of The Girl in the Torch by Robert Sharenow and other stories about immigrant children)

Grade:


If this were a movie, it would be rated:


for violence

To the FTC, with love:  Another library fine find

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Reading

<i>Reading</i>
Dumb Witness by Agatha Christie

Listening

<i>Listening</i>
The Soulmate by Sally Hepworth



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