Newbery Honor Winner Visits Brewster Eighth Graders

Eighth graders at Henry H. Wells Middle School were treated to a presentation by author Thanhha Lai recently. Before the visit, students read her Newbery Honor book, Inside Out and Back Again, which was inspired by Lai’s childhood experience as a refugee.

Lai explained to students that her family (which consisted of her mom, six brothers and two sisters) fled Vietnam after the fall of Saigon when she was 10 years old. Her dad did not join the family because, like the father in the book, he was missing in action. The family landed in Montgomery, Alabama and were the first Asians people in their new town had ever met. They didn’t speak English and had no English as a New Language teachers to help them transition.

After hearing about Vietnam, Lai’s background, and some of the ways her book mirrored her life, students were able to ask her questions. Many were interested in which parts of the story were real and which were fiction.

One student asked why Lai decided to write the book in poems.

“The book takes place inside the mind of a girl who just moved to Alabama,” Lai explained. “She doesn’t think in English. She is thinking in Vietnamese. I was trying to show how that sounds in your mind without actually writing in Vietnamese.”

Lai’s visit was sponsored by the Brewster Education Foundation.