Journey Home

March 30, 1998
In this subdued and affecting story, a woman who was abandoned as an infant at a Saigon orphanage travels from the U.S. back to Vietnam to look for her birth family. Her 10-year-old daughter, Mai, narrates the story as she accompanies her mother. The only clue to the woman's identity is her sole possession at the time of her adoption by an American couple: a delicate, handmade kite. Most of the book follows the woman's involved search and fruitless efforts to discover her roots. But in the book's most childlike moment, Mai wistfully empathizes with her mother, since the girl has never met her own father: "Mom doesn't know where he is, and he's never tried to find me. I don't understand why people can't stay together." Their quest finally leads them to an elderly kite maker who, in an emotional reunion, relates his connection to the woman's parents, killed in a bombing, and how he rescued Mai's mother--and the kite, made by her father. But McKay's (Caravan) pacing is problematic: after the long buildup, this climactic moment gets short shrift. The Lees' (Baseball Saved Us) realistic art, by turns brightly lighted and almost oppressively dark, seamlessly matches the changing moods of the text. Throughout, the artists evoke a clear picture of Vietnam's urban and rural landscapes (in one standout scene, the Lees deftly spotlight mother and daughter in a rickshaw in the midst of the chaotic streets of Shanghai). Uneven tempo aside, this text will engage anyone interested in Vietnam or adoption. Ages 6-up.