Inside Out and Back Again by Thanhha Lai (audiobook)

genre: middle grade historical fiction

For Hà, Siagon is home, its busy markets and papaya trees have been the backdrop for the first ten years of her life.  Until the war, her mother managed life with Hà and her three brothers - until life in Siagon couldn't be managed anymore and Hà's family decides to flee to America.

This novel in verse, told from a child's perspective, is a beautiful and yet heartbreaking look at leaving home, at being thrust into a new culture and at the ties that truly can bind us together as family and as citizens of this planet.  I was glad I listened so I could feel the textures of the Vietnamese in the narrative.  It's a quick read but an important one.