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Library | Call Number | Status |
|---|---|---|
Searching... Oakdale Library | TEEN FICTION BUR | Searching... Unknown |
Searching... Stillwater Public Library | J FICTION BUR | Searching... Unknown |
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Summary
Summary
A remarkable literary debut by a stunning new voice in children's fiction.
Two years after being airlifted out of war-torn Vietnam, Matt Pin is haunted: by bombs that fell like dead crows, by the family -- and the terrible secret -- he left behind. Now, inside a caring adoptive home in the United States, a series of profound events force him to choose between silence and candor, blame and forgiveness, fear and freedom.
By turns harrowing, dreamlike, sad, and triumphant, this searing debut novel, written in lucid verse, reveals an unforgettable perspective on the lasting impact of war and the healing power of love.
Author Notes
Ann Burg's debut novel, IAll the Broken Pieces/I(2009), was named a Jefferson Cup award winner and an IRA Notable Book for a Global Society, among its many honors. Her follow-up,ISerafina's Promise/I (2013), was named an ALA Notable, Parents' Choice Gold Award Winner, and an NAACP Image Award finalist. Burg worked as an English teacher for 10 years before becoming a full-time writer. She lives in Rhinebeck, New York, with her family. You can visit her online at annburg.com.
Reviews (4)
Publisher's Weekly Review
Using spare free verse, first-time novelist Burg (Pirate Pickle and the White Balloon) beautifully evokes the emotions of a Vietnamese adoptee as he struggles to come to terms with his past. Although he loves his American parents and new little brother, Matt misses the family he left behind two years ago, in 1975, when he was airlifted out of Vietnam. He feels guilty for leaving behind his toddler brother, who was mutilated by a bomb, and yearns for his birth mother, who pushed him "through screaming madness/ and choking dust" into the arms of soldiers. ("My parents say they love me./ He says/ I'll always be his MVP./ She says./ I'm safe, I'm home./ But what about my mother in Vietnam?") Matt's baseball coach and Vietnam vet piano teacher help ease his pain, but it is the patience and unconditional love of his new parents, gently emerging throughout the story, that proves the strongest healing force. The war-torn Vietnamese village that appears in Matt's recurring nightmares sharply contrasts with the haven he has in America. Burg presents lasting images of both. Ages 11-up. (Apr.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Horn Book Review
(Intermediate, Middle School) When Saigon fell, a couple of years before the start of this affecting verse novel, war refugee Matt was airlifted out of Vietnam; now he has been adopted by an American couple. The seventh-grader has two passions-piano and baseball-and one secret: he still feels responsible for the horrific injuries his little brother sustained in Vietnam on the day Matt didn't watch him closely enough. Matt is a child of war, and those painful memories are adeptly captured by the fleeting but powerful images of Burg's free verse: "We did not talk about / the American War, / how tanks lumbered / in the roads / like drunken elephants, / and bombs fell / from the sky / like dead crows." While Matt has made rapid strides in assimilating into American culture, there are some bumps in the road. First, when he becomes the star pitcher on his baseball team, some of his teammates resent him and respond with racist behavior. Second, his piano teacher introduces him to a support group of Vietnam veterans, but Matt initially can't get beyond his guilt enough to join in. Both experiences eventually allow him to work through his past and understand that remembering is not only healing but can open the door to hope: "His name is Huu Hein. / He followed me everywhere. / He follows me still, / and one day, / we're going to find him." From HORN BOOK, (c) Copyright 2010. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Booklist Review
*Starred Review* Airlifted from Vietnam at the end of the war and adopted by a loving American family, Matt Pin, 12, is haunted by what he left behind, even as he bonds with his new little brother and becomes a star pitcher on the school baseball team. In rapid, simple free verse, the first-person narrative gradually reveals his secrets: his memories of mines, flames, screams, helicopters, bombs, and guns, as well as what the war did to his little brother (He followed me / everywhere, / he follows me still). But this stirring debut novel is about much more than therapy and survivor guilt. When his parents take Matt to a veterans' meeting, he hears the soldiers' stories of injury and rejection and begins to understand why the school bully calls him frogface (My brother died / Because of you). There is occasional contrivance as Matt eavesdrops on adults. But the haunting metaphors are never forced, and the intensity of the simple words, on the baseball field and in the war zone, will make readers want to rush to the end and then return to the beginning again to make connections between past and present, friends and enemies. Add this to the Booklist read-alike column Children at War.--Rochman, Hazel Copyright 2009 Booklist
School Library Journal Review
Gr 6-8-In 1977, 12-year-old Matt Pin lives a fractured life. He is the son of a Vietnamese woman and an American soldier and was airlifted to safety from the war zone. Adopted by a caring American couple, he has vivid and horrific memories of the war and worries about the fates of his mother and badly injured little brother. Matt's adoptive family adores him, and he is the star pitcher for his middle school baseball team, but there are those who see his face and blame him for the deaths of the young men they lost in the war. The fractured theme runs the course of this short novel in verse: Matt's family, the bodies and hearts of the Vietnam vets, the country that is "only a pocketful of broken pieces" that Matt carries inside him. Ultimately, everything broken is revealed as nonetheless valuable. While most of the selections read less like poems and more like simple prose, the story is a lovely, moving one. Use this in a history class or paired with Katherine Applegate's Home of the Brave (Feiwel & Friends, 2007).-Heather M. Campbell, formerly at Philip S. Miller Library, Castle Rock, CO (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
