Butterfly Yellow

Starred review from July 22, 2019
Lai (Listen, Slowly) centers her remarkable YA debut on two 18-year-old protagonists: Ha˘'ng, a determined Vietnamese refugee, and LeeRoy, an aspiring cowboy. Just after her arrival in Texas from Vietnam in 1981, Ha˘'ng sneaks out of her uncle’s house to look for her younger brother, who was evacuated by American troops years before. Armed only with an address in Amarillo, she sets off on a bus, and, at a rest stop, collides with hopeful LeeRoy when strangers convince him to drive her, and their lives become further intertwined after they both find work on a ranch near Ha˘'ng’s brother’s adopted home. In chapters that alternately focus on the protagonists’ perspectives, the layered narrative gradually unwinds Ha˘'ng’s tremendous guilt about her brother, the trauma of her journey from Vietnam, and the intensity of the pain caused by her brother’s indifference. Lai ably sketches the chemistry between Ha˘'ng and LeeRoy; he interprets her English and helps her relate to her brother, she models dedication and loyalty, and the two slowly become friends and more. Told with ample grace, Lai’s finely drawn narrative and resilient characters offer a memorable, deeply felt view of the Vietnam War’s impact. Ages 13–up.

July 1, 2019

Gr 9 Up-After the fall of Saigon during the Vietnam War, hundreds of children were airlifted from Vietnam to the United States. Hang saw to it that her three-year-old brother Linh was one of these children, though at the airport she's shocked to discover she's too old to accompany him. Six years later, 18-year-old Hang arrives in Texas, where her uncle and his family live, carrying an address, the only connection she has to her brother. Although her uncle promises that he will take her to the address in Amarillo, she cannot wait. She catches a bus and eventually a ride with LeeRoy, who is headed to Amarillo to meet his rodeo hero. When they arrive, Linh does not remember her and wants nothing to do with her. LeeRoy and Hang get jobs at a neighboring ranch where she tries to connect with her brother and LeeRoy tries to learn how to be a cowboy. Hang and LeeRoy, as well as the other main characters, have complex personalities that often clash. Hang's English dialogue, written in Vietnamese syllables, has to be sounded out by readers and can be difficult to interpret, though it becomes clearer when LeeRoy repeats what she says. The plot has a nice blend of external and internal action although some knowledge of the Vietnam War would make for better understanding of Hang's trauma. VERDICT While this is not Lai's strongest book, the universal truths about the lingering aftermath of war make it one that will find readers.-Janet Hilbun, University of North Texas, Denton

Copyright 2019 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Starred review from July 1, 2019
The day after Hằng arrives in Texas from a refugee camp, she heads toward Amarillo to find her little brother. On that same day in 1981, an 18-year-old aspiring cowboy named LeeRoy is traveling to Amarillo to pursue his rodeo dreams. After some helpful meddling from a couple at a rest stop, LeeRoy finds himself driving Hằng on her search instead. They make an odd pair, a white boy from Austin and a determined Vietnamese refugee on a mission. But their chemistry works: Hằng sees through LeeRoy's cowboy airs, and LeeRoy understands Hằng's clever English pronunciations, cobbled together from Vietnamese syllables. When they find Hằng's brother and he remembers nothing about Vietnam, Hằng and LeeRoy settle in at the ranch next door. Hằng's heartbreaking memories of the day her brother was mistakenly taken by Americans at the end of the war, her harrowing journey to America, and the family she left behind are all tempered by LeeRoy's quiet patience and exasperated affection. It is their warm and comic love/hate relationship, developing over the course of the summer into something more, that is the soul of award-winning Lai's (Listen, Slowly, 2015, etc.) first young adult novel. Every sentence is infused with warmth, and Lai shows readers that countless moments of grace exist even in the darkest times. Masterfully conjures grace, beauty, and humor out of the tragic wake of the Vietnam War. (author's note) (Historical fiction. 13-18)

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Gorgeous writing meets expert narration in this one-of-a-kind refugee story. Narrator LuLu Lam gracefully maneuvers listeners through Hang's efforts to reconnect her with her brother Lihn in Texas after the Vietnam War. Lam fully captures Hang's struggles and joys with learning English as well the text's Vietnamese dialogue, making this an especially appropriate novel for audio. Equally impressive is the Texas twang Lam gives to LeeRoy, a chatty cowboy-in-training who slowly becomes enamored with Hang. Most notably, Hang's memories of wartime trauma are not overly dramatized, allowing the listener to simply bear witness to her brutal past. With many parallels to today's immigrant experience, the story includes moments of beauty, sorrow, and hope. E.A.N. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award � AudioFile 2019, Portland, Maine

Starred review from July 1, 2019
Grades 9-12 *Starred Review* As she did in the Newbery Honor- and National Book Award-winning Inside Out and Back Again (2011), Lai tells the story of a Vietnamese refugee. Here the girl is 18-year-old Hang, who carries several secrets as she makes the perilous journey to family in Texas. One: in the waning days of the war, Hang handed over her five-year-old brother, Linh, at an airlift. Almost immediately, the 11-year-old realized her plan for both of them to be taken, with her unknowing parents to somehow follow, was stupid. Then her father dies, and her mother and grandmother spend the next six years planning to retrieve Linh. But when Hang does find Linh, now David, he has no desire for a relationship. Simultaneously, the story of LeeRoy is told: a well-to-do kid with dreams of becoming a cowboy, he becomes entangled with Hang and her family, forcing him to look outside his narrow desires. Hang's other secret is brilliantly and painfully disclosed, and throughout, the use of the Vietnamese language enhances the reality. There are a few hiccups in the plot that might pull readers out of the story, but Lai's beautiful storytelling quickly draws them back in. Her imagery awakens the senses, whether describing an earthmover as a parched giraffe made of metal, or depicting the varying sweetness of Vietnamese fruit. Most powerful is the deep throb of regret and the thinnest wisps of hopefulness that Lai conveys throughout. They touch the soul.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2019, American Library Association.)