I liked the book Escape from Saigon because of the photos dispersed throughout the book as well as the quotes that are included. The photos display the emotions involved in reading the book. For example, the author writes about the difficult time people from South Vietnam had in escaping the war-torn country, and in this chapter, there is a photo with the following caption: “17,000 South Vietnamese refugees crowd the deck of the SS Pioneer Contender trying to escape the war” (p. 40). Above this is picture of the overcrowded boat with people sitting on it, their feet dangling over the edge of the boat. This displays the desperate nature of the South Vietnamese people and the gravity of the war; a picture explains the situation more clearly to the reader than solely written text. The quotes included in this book include a lot of the emotions involved in Long’s story. For example, Long says, “I remember such children. I once looked like them. Had circumstances been slightly different, I could have been one of the children in the photo” (p. 82). This displays Long’s thankfulness and his recognition of the severity of the situation back in Vietnam during the war. The main message of this book is that a person can make peace with his past no matter how difficult the circumstances were. Long leaves his country, not knowing if he will ever see his home or grandmother again. As he grows older, he reflects on his past and what happened, having mixed emotions about it. However, he eventually returns to Vietnam and reconciles with it. ( )

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. ( )

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. ( )

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. ( )

The story of an orphaned amerasian boy who escaped Vietnam as part of Operation Babylift, and was adopted by an Ohio family. ( )