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“Readers will share the children’s emotional highs and lows, and witness both the ugliness and beauty of humanity. Told in beautifully written verse from Lam’s perspective, this story is a combination of the real-life Lam’s journey, accounts told to the author by other refugees, and a bit of imagination…A moving and thought-provoking picture of a refugee experience filled with both tragedy and hope.”

—School Library Journal

House Without Walls

Written by Ching Yeung Russell
Published by Yellow Jacket

Eleven-year-old Lam escapes from Vietnam with her younger brother during the Vietnamese Boat People Exodus in 1979, when people from Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia fled their homelands for safety.

For Lam, “safety” means joining her father in San Francisco. But the trip to the United States is long and perilous, full of dangerous encounters with pirates and greedy sailors, a lack of food and water, and even the stench of dead bodies. Befriending Nam, Dao, and their parents is a small reprieve from the horror, but the worst is yet to come. . . . Can Lam and her brother survive the refugee camps? Will they be reunited with their father?

Written in verse, House Without Walls is a heartfelt story that is sure to elicit empathy and compassion for refugees around the world escaping oppression.

Primary ISBN: 9781499808759
Publication Date: June 2019
Available As: Hardcover, Paperback, eBook
Middle Grade, Age 08 or older

Community Represented:

Themes: , , , , , , , ,

Setting: Vietnam, Malaysia, Indonesia, United States (San Francisco CA)

Character's Place in the Immigration Journey: Refugee, On Journey, Refugee Camp

Book Creator(s) Connection to the Community Represented: Written with Cultural Advisors

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