Going Home, Coming Home/Ve Nha, Tham Que Huong

by Truong Tran, Dana Goldberg (Editor), Ann Phong (Illustrator)

Ami Chi is traveling to Vietnam, where the streets are crowded with scooters and the fruit are shaped like dragons and stars. Her parents still consider Vietnam home. But Ami Chi is confused. How can home be a place you’ve never been? She finds her answer in the green rice paddies that blanket the countryside, in the bustling Cho Lon market, and in the quiet rooms of her grandmother’s house. Vietnam may be nothing like America, but it feels strangely familiar. Before long, Ami Chi finds that you can travel very far and still find yourself at home.

Genres: Picture Books, Cultural, Aapi, Refugee, Asia, Childrens, Family

31 pages, Hardcover

First published June 19, 2003

About the author

Truong Tran is a poet and visual artist. His publications include The Book of Perceptions, Placing The Accents, dust and conscience (awarded the San Francisco Poetry Center Book Prize), within the margin, and Four Letter Words. Truong lives in San Francisco where he is currently teaching poetry at SFSU and Mills College.

Reviews

[Jenna]

I bought this children's picture book because I'm a fangirl for illustrator Ann Phong's swirling color-saturated paintings generally. The author, Truong Tran, is also a poet, and it shows in his choice of details and imagery. The bilingual text -- English paragraphs set alongside Vietnamese translations supplied by the illustrious Nguyen Qui Duc, also an eminent literary writer and the co-editor of the great anthology Vietnam: A Traveler's Companion, who sadly passed away in 2023 -- tells of an American-born girl of Vietnamese heritage visiting Vietnam for the first time, struggling to grasp why her refugee parents still think of this unfamiliar milieu as "home."

[Kendall Adams · Rating 5 out of 5]

Truong Tran wrote a beautiful story about a young Vietnamese girl who is struggling to be confident in her heritage. Ami Chi is the main character of the story, who is a young girl visiting Vietnam, the country her parents were from. In the beginning of the story, Ami has a negative outlook on her trip to Vietnam. She wishes she could go home due to her frustration in not understanding Vietnamese as well as the rest of her family. There is a lot of interpersonal dialogue that takes place in this story to show the reader the doubt that Ami was feeling.

The theme of this story is that Ami recognizes her home is much more than a building she lives in. She knows she is from America, and in this story she discovered how much she loves her Vietnamese heritage.

The illustrations in this story were amazing. There were multiple double page bleeds along with some single page bleeds. This varied based on the part of the story. One page that stuck out to me was when the two girls were in the rain, it looked so realistic! English and Vietnamese were represented equally in this story. I really enjoyed seeing the signs and other incorporations of the Vietnamese language into the English reading.

The best part of this story is the introduction and the backmatter. In the intro, it discusses how the Truong Tran was also from Vietnam and moved to America at the age of 5. He had a hard time accepting his Vietnamese heritage and didn’t do so until he was an adult. Then when I turned to the backmatter, it displayed in depth the ways that both Trang and Phong (illustrator) both moved to America. Trang also shares that the story is based on his niece! This book can be a great example for students who are born in America or born elsewhere that are struggling to accept their heritage. It can be hard for children to not want to conform, but this would serve as a great tool for children.

[Kaylee Ness · Rating 5 out of 5]

This story follows a young girl who is struggling to accept her Vietnamese heritage. Ami Chi, the main character, was born and raised in America and had yet to visit Vietnam, which is where both of her parents are from. The beginning of the story shows Ami Chi heading to Vietnam for the first time. She is struggling to understand why her family needs to go to Vietnam and complains stating she wants to go home because of the humid air and her inability to understand the Vietnamese language. Throughout the story, Ami Chi begins to be introduced to different parts of her heritage and even makes a friend who helps Ami Chi begin to grow a love for her heritage. Eventually, her perspective changes and she realizes that even though America is her home, Vietnam is also her home.

What makes this story so special is the introduction at the beginning of the story. Much like the girl in the story, the author was also originally from Vietnam. In the introduction, the author briefly tells his story explaining that he moved to America from Vietnam when he was 5 years old. He too had difficulty accepting his Vietnamese culture, and it wasn’t until 25 years later that he returned to Vietnam and found himself to be not only an American, but also Vietnamese. This provides readers with a whole new level of credibility to this story. This story was coming from the heart of someone who experienced something much like what the story represents.

I loved this story because the English and Vietnamese languages were both equally represented throughout. There were even some Vietnamese words incorporated into the English dialogue. The illustrator provides the readers with a variety of full, double page bleeds as well as full, single page bleeds. The images throughout were absolutely beautiful. I felt as though I was engulfed in the Vietnamese culture and the little town in the story known as Ho Chi Minh City (or Saigon). Flipping to the back-matter in the story, readers are provided with more insight into the lives of both the author and illustrator and how they both came to be in America. There are even two real photographs, one of a river in Vietnam when the author returned home for the first time, and the other of the town of Hanoi. The author even mentions that the character in his story was inspired by his niece, the real Ami Chi.

[Emily · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ages 6 and up. A girl born in the United States goes with her family to visit relatives in Vietnam and tries to figure out why her parents keep referring to it as "home" when their "home" is obviously in the U.S. A sweet story about figuring out abstract ideas like cultural identity and simple ideas like home. The text on each page appears in both English and Vietnamese.

[Jo Oehrlein · Rating 3 out of 5]

A story of a first generation American going to Vietnam with her parents. She has trouble because she doesn't speak Vietnamese. The weeks pass slowly and she wants to go home until she meets a friend in the market.

[Carlos Díaz · Rating 4 out of 5]

A great book about Viet Nam, and the feeling we refugees get when we think our lost home. It got me feeling many things at the same time. I miss my home.

[Bev · Rating 3 out of 5]

Pair with Inside Out and Back Again or Listen Slowly.

[Lynne · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars

RTC

[Thao · Rating 4 out of 5]

This narrative tells about a little girl who struggles to accept her Vietnamese culture. The eight-year-old American-born Ami Chi tells about her first trip to Vietnam with her parents. In the beginning, Ami Chi complains and long to return home to America due to the heat, the small house, and her incapability to understand the language. Her perspective changed as her experiences illustrates the attractiveness of Vietnam and it starts to feel like home.

I will use this book in my classroom to show sequencing; the students will be able to organize the main events in the story. Also, I would use this book to teach students distinguish between compare and contrast and cause and effect in this text. This book shows a progression of the narrator’s perspective of her Vietnamese culture. The students can discuss about the reasons why and how her perspectives change from the beginning of the story compare to the end (ex. “Before I came to Vietnam, I knew I was an American. Here I learned that I am both Vietnamese and American”). In addition, this book can be beneficial for bilingual Vietnamese students because they can read the book in both languages since it is a bilingual text.

Both the author, Truong Tran, and the illustrator, Ann Phong, are Vietnamese American. Truong Tran writes this story from an insider’s point of view. The author’s nieces and nephews, who are 2nd generation immigrants, inspired him to write this book. Also, with the description of the story and the detailed of the illustrations, students may pretend to be like Ami Chi and documents her trip to Vietnam; they can create a journal of Ami Chi’s trip.

[Zeal · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved this story a lot! Ami Chi's story is one that might be familiar to many other first generation American children to immigrant parents. Ami has never been to Vietnam and is apprehensive to go to her parents native land. They are very excited to go but Ami feel uncomfortable there due to her inability to speak the language. This story is authentic because the author is also a first generation American born to immigrant parents and was also nervous to go to Vietnam for the first time. The illustrations are beautiful and reflect the story well. The characters are kind and show no negative stereotypes.

[Hatka Kecalovic · Rating 4 out of 5]

The book Going Home, Coming Home/ Ve Nha, Tham Que Huong by Truong Tran serves as a mulicultural book which focuses on two differnt cultures. The cultures mentioned in the book are American and Vietnamese. The book can be used to analyze family structure or differences between Vietnamese and American cultures. The book uses both Vietnamese and English. This is benefitual for biligual Vietnamese students because they can read the book in both languages. This book can be used in Kindergarten-5 grade classrooms.

[Angela · Rating 3 out of 5]

A second generation Vietnamese immigrant visits Vietnam for the first time. She doesn't understand why her parents keep calling it home until she finds her own sense of home there, too. Nice enough little story with nice illustrations. Bilingual.

[Sarah · Rating 4 out of 5]

Cute story relevant to second generation Vietnamese children, and of course, bilingual which is great! There was one incorrect translation (misspelling perhaps?), but other than that I'm happy with this book and learned a bit of Vietnamese while enjoying myself.

[Heather · Rating 5 out of 5]

Beautifully illustrated.

[Lindsey Duncan]

This book tells the story of a girl who visits her grandmother in Vietnam. The book is written in English and Vietnamese.