I am always a little dubious of books written in verse. With "Out of the Dust," Karen Hesse proved that it could be done well. Few have met the challenge since then, however.

Thanhha Lai's "Inside Out and Back Again" is an admirable fictional depiction of the author's experience as a 10-year-old Vietnamese girl, Kim Ha', whose family is fractured by the war & eventual relocation from Saigon to Alabama. The strongest parts of this book were in the clear-eyed description of the emotional hardship borne by the protagonist and her family, especially the shame that she and her brothers feel trying to integrate into an unwelcoming culture.

I found the most powerful part depicted in "Feel Dumb" where Ha is being directed by her well-meaning but insensate 4th-grade teacher to recite the alphabet in English.

"...
I count up to twenty.

The class claps
on its own.

I'm furious,
unable to explain
I already learned

fractions
and how to purify
river water.

So this is
what dumb
feels like.

I hate, hate, hate it."

This book fills the need for historical fiction about the Vietnam War era, one that is only recently being addressed in children's fiction. Its Vietnamese narrator makes it singular for readers who have already read Kadohata's "Cracker" or "A Million Shades of Gray."