Thanhha Lai's Inside Out and Back Again
Lai's debut novel--which is inspired by her own childhood--focuses on a young Vietnamese girl who flees with her family to Alabama at the end of the Vietnam War, and then has a whole new series of hardships to deal with as she tries to fit in. It's a fast read--it's written in free-form poetry--but not an easy one. I did think it ended a bit abruptly, but it's a middle-grade book so I don't have a big problem with that. The blog that mentioned this (I don't remember which one) thought it was a strong contender for the Newbery, and I more-or-less agree. A-.
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