Listen, Slowly by Thanhhà Lại (review)

Abstract

Reviewed by: Listen, Slowly by Thanhhà Lại Karen Coats Lại, Thanhhà Listen, Slowly. Harper/HarperCollins, 2015 [272p] Trade ed. ISBN 978-0-06-222918-2 $16.99 E-book ed. ISBN 978-0-06-222920-5 $9.99 Reviewed from galleys R Gr. 6-9 Twelve-year-old Mia is the only member of the family available to help her grandmother finally get some answers about what happened to Mia’s grandfather, who was captured during the Vietnam War. Leaving California behind, Mia and her grandmother travel to the Vietnamese village of Mia’s father’s birth, where Mia is overwhelmed by the attentions of officious aunties and suspicious cousins who are fascinated with Mia and anxious to show hospitality, even producing a translator—a boy who has gone to school in America and speaks English with a delightful Texan-Vietnamese accent. Fortunately for Mia, she understands Vietnamese even if she can’t speak it, a fact she cagily keeps to herself in order to gain information amid the flurry of constant activity, and she’s even able to conspire with her cousins to escape the vigilant attention of the adults. Meanwhile, a detective has found the man who guarded Mia’s grandfather in his last days, and Mia and her grandmother must then to travel to Saigon to find more answers. The village experience and Mia and her grandmother’s travels in the city offer Lại a way to introduce readers to various aspects of Vietnamese culture with both wry wit and genuine enthusiasm. She’s chosen her narrator well: Mia is a thoroughly credible contemporary California girl, tempering her wonder and fascination regarding this world of mosquitoes, luminous frogs, no privacy, and endless food with a full measure of good-natured tween eye-rolling. Her surprise at finding a new friend in a difficult cousin, as well as a new perspective on what really matters, is as endearing as it is instructive for readers, and they may be prompted to take more interest in their own family histories. Copyright © 2015 The Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois