ALA Booklist (Fri Feb 01 00:00:00 CST 2008)

Based on a true story, this poignant picture book tells of one of the hundreds of thousands of children orphaned by the Vietnam War. When Kim is four, her village is bombed, and her mother dies. A soldier cracks a gun across her head, and she blacks out; when she comes to, her vision is hazy. Eventually rescued by American soldiers, she is raised in an orphanage by kind caregivers, and she feels safe, sustained by her mother's last words: Don't be afraid. I will always be with you. The quiet words are delivered through the child's perspective, while Himler's beautiful, spacious watercolors show the terrifying bombing, the sepia-and-gray-toned world Kim sees after her concussion, and then her sadness and hope during the following five years. The format suggests a traditional picture-book readership, but the subject matter is difficult; young children may have many questions. Try this with elementary-schoolers who are slightly older than the traditional picture-book listeners.

Kirkus Reviews

"Kim, come to me." "Don't be afraid." "I will always be with you." These three sentences are the only words Kim remembers her mother saying. Only four years old when bombs fall on her village in Vietnam, destroying her home, damaging her eyesight and killing her mother, Kim is brought by kind soldiers to an orphanage in China Beach. Supported by the couple who run the orphanage, over time Kim begins to adjust to her new life, and although she grieves, she makes a new friend, learns to write and starts to play. There is not enough to eat, bombs explode in the distance and she cannot see color; yet she is able to feel safe and secure because she can still hear her mother's words. Based on a true story, this story documents the hardships of war in a personal way that older children will undoubtedly under Includes an author's note regarding Kim's travels to the U.N.EWSLUGS for surgery and eventual adoption, as well as a general background on the Vietnam War. (Picture book. 8-12)

School Library Journal (Mon Sep 01 00:00:00 CDT 2008)

Gr 3-4 Toshi Maruki's Hiroshima no Pika (HarperCollins, 1982) and Eleanor Coerr's Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes (Putnam, 2002) are outstanding examples of books that try to describe the horrors and inhumanity of war in ways that children would understand. On a lesser scale of strength, this picture book takes a tragedy experienced by a four-year-old and makes it a universal story about being alone and afraid. When her village in Vietnam is bombed, Kim remembers her mother's dying words, "I will always be with you." She holds to them when she is struck on the head by a gun; when she is found, hungry and almost blind, by friendly soldiers; and when she is taken to an orphanage where she is cared for and loved. The pencil and watercolor illustrations are admirably suited to the text: Kim's expressions, the gray lines of marching soldiers, and the devastated land do more to deglorify warfare than any amount of adult preaching, just as the sight of her softly weeping in her bed and being reassured by the orphanage house mistress conveys her longing for her mother better than words would. This is a good book to use in classroom discussions of war, of what happens to the children, or, more specifically, of the Vietnam War and how it was that so many Vietnamese came to the United States. Marian Drabkin, formerly at Richmond Public Library, CA