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

Escape from Saigon: in what manner a Vietnam War Orphan Became An American male child by Andrea Warren Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2004 106 pp $1700 Historical Biography ISBN: 0-374-32224-4

This touching work chronicles the closing days of American involvement in the Vietnam War and "Operation Babylift," a last-ditch attempt by the agency of the American government to save orphaned children in Vietnam before the Communist Army marched into the city. If the children stayed, there would be little trust for survival. Most of the children were of mixed vital current half Vietnamese and half American. Northern Vietnam gazeed upon these children as having "the vital current of the enemy" and would kill them outright. Matt Steiner became individual of these orphans when his mother committed suicide, and his G.I. father was unknown. His grandmother gave him up to an American agency when she could no longer provide for Matt.

Warren pieces a narrative of Matt's early years using what little Malt remembers, and the be the effects are heartbreaking. Matt wrestles with abandonment and the rapidly approaching horrors of war. Warren also chronicles Mr Steiner's harrowing trip to America and his adjustment to his American family. Escape from Saigon is compelling enough to read in single sitting and stays with you drawn out after you put it down.

Eldridge Tsosie

Tempe AZ

Copyright Assembly upon Literature for Adolescents -- National Council of Teachers of English Fall 2004

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