A Grain of Rice

by Nhung N. Tran-Davies

Overview

Thirteen-year-old Yen and her family have survived a war, famine and persecution. When a powerful flood ruins their village in rural Vietnam, matters only get worse. With the help of neighbors and family, they decide to take the ultimate risk on a chance for a better life.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781926890258
Publisher:	Tradewind Books
Publication date:	01/15/2019
Pages:	154
Product dimensions:	8.25(w) x 6.00(h) x 0.50(d)
Age Range:	12 - 17 Years

About the Author

Nhung N. Tran-Davies is a physician and advocate for social justice through education. She is the author of Ten Cents a Pound. She founded the Children of Vietnam Benevolent Foundation and spoke as part of the UN’s “i am a migrant” campaign. She lives outside Edmonton.

Editorial Reviews

"The descriptive narrative [has] a strong sense of immediacy; the author's portrayal of the mother's dedication, generosity and persistence is spot on."

The Horn Book

Debut author Nhun Tran-Davies immerses the reader in this deeply moving fictionalized account of her family's escape from Vietnam following the fall of Saigon.

CM: Canadian Review of Materials

★ "While certainly a suspenseful action story, A Grain of Rice is a sobering read, which gives insight into the…struggles of refugees past and present."

starred review Quill & Quire

"A gripping account of the refugee experience…The action never flags, and Yen's feistiness makes her an engaging and empathetic character."

Booklist

"Based on events from the author's childhood, this fictionalized narrative offers a gripping account if the refugee experience."

Booklist

"While certainly a suspenseful action story, A Grain of Rice is a sobering read, which gives insight into the…struggles of refugees past and present."

Quill & Quire—starred review

"While certainly a suspenseful action story, A Grain of Rice is a sobering read, which gives insight into the…struggles of refugees past and present."

Quill & Quire - starred review

"Debut author Nhun Tran-Davies immerses the reader in this deeply moving fictionalized account of her family's escape from Vietnam following the fall of Saigon."

CM: Canadian Review of Materials

2018-11-04

Three years after the fall of Saigon, 13-year-old Yen, her mother, and her four siblings are barely getting by in a small village on the Mekong Delta.

With little to eat and even littler hope of a better life under the oppressive Viet Cong government, Ma decides to flee from Vietnam with her five children. Yen and Ma sell their possessions and visit friends and family in preparation, encountering both the kindness and the hardness in people along the way. Debut author Tran-Davies does not shy away from the terrible realities of postwar Vietnam, including poverty, corruption, and violence, but the worst atrocities are alluded to with little detail. This may reduce trauma for readers without background knowledge, but the deliberate obfuscation results in choppy, sometimes confusing, narrative flow with uneven pacing. Packed into the last 30 or so pages is Yen's entire flight out of Vietnam, her narration hurrying past such horrors as getting packed into the hold of a fishing boat for over a week with no food, a pirate attack that includes off-page rapes of several girls, and the capsizing of the boat and the drowning of countless refugees before the few survivors are rescued.

Though the events of the book are based on history and will be all too familiar to those who have lived through similar trauma, some may feel dissatisfied with the bleak narrative, which leaves much unexplained and very little hope. (afterword, glossary) (Historical fiction. 10-13)

Kirkus Reviews