Run Me to Earth by Paul Yoon - 4 stars

[Booknblues]

Laos:
These bombing missions would last nine years (from 1964 to 1973) and would end up totaling more than five hundred and eighty thousand. This is the equivalent of one bombardment every eight minutes, twenty-four hours a day, for nine years. Over two million tons of ordnance were dropped on Laos—more than was dropped on both Germany and Japan during the Second World War. Thirty percent of these cluster bombs, or “bombies,” failed to explode on impact..

Alisak, Prany and Noi are three orphaned teenagers who are trying to survive the chaos of war in Laos. Survival is difficult and often they go without food, until they are asked by aid workers to help in a hospital set up in a colonial mansion above the Plain of Jars. One of their tasks is to ride motor bikes and retrieve patients from nearby. This is often a dangerous task as there is much unexploded ordnance in the countryside which must be avoided.

We follow them through this time and through the rest of their lives shifting from one to another. Yoon's writing is beautiful and often dreamlike. I came to really care about these teenagers and I am still thinking about the hospital.