In Too Young To Escape, author Van Ho describes how her life as a four year old child was in the aftermath of the Vietnam War. She was living with her mom, sister,brother grandmother in the house of her aunt and uncle in Ho Chi Minh City, when one day, her mother, sister Loan and brother Tuan are gone without having said goodbye. Where did they go? And why didn't take her with them?
Van's mother, brother and sister have escaped Vietnam by boat, to find freedom, which they eventually find in their new homeland Canada. Van and grandmother where too young and old to go with them But back in Vietnam, Van still lives in her aunt and uncle's house, where she is treated as unwelcome and where she has to work hard every morning and afternoon before and after school;sweep, dust, help cooking and sew rice bags, and at school, she is bullied and only has one friend, who is kind of in the same situation as her. Her grandmother is very sweet and kind to her and makes her feel loved, and they hope to hear from the family that escaped. They do soon, as big boxes of things the family in Canada send them. But the boxes are brutally confiscated by police who come search the house for the goods, as it is send by people who escaped and are now treated by the authorities as enemies.
When Van is 8, a box with warm wintercoats and plane tickets for her and her grandmother arrive, and it finally time for time to aboard a plane to Canada to join their family living there and to leave Vietnam behind..
This is a book for readers from around 10 and older which gives a realistic view of the life of a child in post-war Vietnam. It reads as a memoir, and it is understandable for young readers how life was in Vietnam, without any difficult terms. I found the story very moving, as many other books about Vietnamese that I have read the past years, and altough the stories have many similarities, each individual situation is different and it keeps moving me. This was no difference with this book. I have not found many books for young readers about the Vietnam war, there are a few and this one truly fits in the line of recommended books in this topic because its so moving and realistic and a firsthand real story!! Recommended!!
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