Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    Unavailable
    Escape from Saigon: How a Vietnam War Orphan Became an American Boy
    Unavailable
    Escape from Saigon: How a Vietnam War Orphan Became an American Boy
    Unavailable
    Escape from Saigon: How a Vietnam War Orphan Became an American Boy
    Ebook146 pages1 hour

    Escape from Saigon: How a Vietnam War Orphan Became an American Boy

    By Andrea Warren

    3.5/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this ebook

    An unforgettable true story of an orphan caught in the midst of war

    Over a million South Vietnamese children were orphaned by the Vietnam War. This affecting true account tells the story of Long, who, like more than 40,000 other orphans, is Amerasian -- a mixed-race child -- with little future in Vietnam. Escape from Saigon allows readers to experience Long's struggle to survive in war-torn Vietnam, his dramatic escape to America as part of "Operation Babylift" during the last chaotic days before the fall of Saigon, and his life in the United States as "Matt," part of a loving Ohio family. Finally, as a young doctor, he journeys back to Vietnam, ready to reconcile his Vietnamese past with his American present.
    As the thirtieth anniversary of the end of the Vietnam War approaches, this compelling account provides a fascinating introduction to the war and the plight of children caught in the middle of it.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherMacmillan Publishers
    Release dateSep 2, 2008
    ISBN9781466834484
    Unavailable
    Escape from Saigon: How a Vietnam War Orphan Became an American Boy
    Author

    Andrea Warren

    Andrea Warren says, "I'm always looking behind facts and dates in search of how extraordinary times impact ordinary people. I think the most engaging way to study history is by seeing it through the eyes of participants. Each of us wants to know, If that had been me at that time, in that place, what would I have done? What would have happened to me?" Among Warren's honors are the prestigious Boston Globe-Horn Book Award for Orphan Train Rider: One Boy's True Story, which was also selected as an ALA Notable Book. She won the Midland Authors Award for Pioneer Girl. Growing Up on the Prairie. A former teacher and journalist, Warren writes from her home in the Kansas City suburb of Prairie Village, Kansas.

    Read more from Andrea Warren

    Related to Escape from Saigon

    Related ebooks

    Children's For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    Reviews for Escape from Saigon

    3.5/5

    18 ratings3 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

    • 3/5
      This book doesn't zoom in the war and battles of Vietnam but rather focuses on the the orphans and the people who helped them. The story of how a boy name Long came to an orphanage in Vietnam and was adopted by a family in America. Like thousands other Vietnamese children, Long lost his parents in the war. His grandmother brought him to the Holt International Children's Services, because it was difficult for her to make enough money to feed her grandson. She knew that the organization will take a better care of him. Long was an Amerasian, a term use to describe a person born from a Vietnamese mother and a US military father. Amerasian are often looked down upon in Vietnam. They suffered from discrimination and sometimes violence from the Vietnamese villagers. Many Amerasian children got bullied and was poke fun at. The Holt International Children's Services helped many orphans finding their adoptive homes. Long was adopted by the Steiners family from Ohio. Long didn't have much problems fitting in with his family and his new life in America. He later changed his name to Matt. The story of Long is a fortunately one, but many other Vietnamese orphans weren't as lucky. It was mentioned in the book a little bit about the Operational Babylift Flight, a plane carried over 200 orphans, crashed during an evacuation flight to America. This book remind people that in an event of a war, not only the soldiers and the civilians suffer the consequences but also the innocent children.
    • 4/5
      Escape from Saigon How a Vietnam war orphan became an American boy, is a gripping biographical chapter book account of one boys escape from South Vietnam during the North’s take over. The book is written by Andrea Warren and was published 2004 by Library of Congress. The book is a true story about a boy named Long and his escape from Vietnam, told through Andrea Warren. I liked the statistics and words used in the book; the characters were believable and made me feel like I was right there in the story. However, I did not like that it was told from a second person. I know that the author has a personal experience with this, having adopted children from Vietnam herself, but I feel that the story loses something when the person it is about, does not even have a paragraph in the story. I know that this could have been difficult for Long (now Matt) to have relived his story. However, you can’t beat hearing a story right from the source.I think that the statistics and the interesting vocabulary in the story really bring it to an interesting level. Through the story Matt is referred to as Amerasian, half American and half Asian. This word brings a lot of racism and fear to Matt in the story. Racism that he is not one hundred percent Vietnamese, fear that when the North invades he will be killed for not being fully Asian. This fear and racism only adds to the fear Matt feels through his journey. The statistics really make us feel like we are part of the journey that Matt takes. When I read statistics like 2 to 3 million Vietnamese died during the war, the number of children in the orphanage, and how many people Matt saw starving to death made this story real for me. The statistics made me feel like the story was happening today. Without them I feel like the story would not be as exciting as it was.The characters are presented in such a way that, by the end of the book I felt that I really knew them for a long time. You could feel Matt’s sadness when his mother committed suicide and when he was forced to leave Ba. We see Matt develop from a frightened boy (who wouldn’t be) in an orphanage, to a young man who helps to comfort other children during Operation Babylift. It is amazing to see Matt develop into this man when he was so scared as a boy. What really helped the character development were the paragraphs of what they are doing today. At the end of the story is a list of things like Postscript of the people, more detail on operation Babylift, Amerasian children, and more. This helps us to better understand what the characters went through in their escape and what they are doing today. This helped me to really get to know the characters more. Today Matt is an emergency room physician in Indiana. It says that his teacher Miss Anh was a real person whose name was changed to protect her identity. This was a reminder to me that there is still a lot of hostility to Amerasians.Immigration and courage are at the center of the theme for this book. This whole story is about Matt’s immigration to the U.S through operation Babylift and the courage that he had to show during the struggles that he faced. He had to show courage to the younger orphans when the North was close to moving in. He had to be brave so that others would be brave.
    • 4/5
      Oh. well, this book affect me a lot. Because I am Vietnamese, and I do know about war. And yes! I hate the communists of North Vietnam "vietcong" It hurt me when I look at those picture that the author provided. My tears almost come out when I read line by line when the author described the way children was hurt and been abandoned.