MY NAME IS SAN HO

by Jayne Pettit ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 1, 1992

A Vietnamese youth witnesses the horrors of war in his native land, then escapes to a strange, sometimes frightening new country when his mother marries a G.I. The author signals her didactic intent with a preface, going on to tell a simple, theme-dominant story: surviving massacres and attacks, San Ho flees his village, spends three years in Saigon, then joins his mother and stepfather in a Philadelphia suburb, where the pleasures of plenty vie with his sense of dislocation. Pettit bases this on her experiences as a teacher, and much of it--San Ho's uncontrollable fright when he hears a siren, or his slow, difficult acquisition of English--has a convincing ring; other incidents, such as an attack by a gang of teenaged vandals, or San Ho's Little League grand slam that erases a three ""point"" deficit, seem like perfunctory insertions. An earnest but uneven effort to guide readers toward greater sympathy for the challenges new immigrants face.

Pub Date: April 1, 1992

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: 192

Publisher: Scholastic

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 1992

Categories: CHILDREN'S