Starred Review ALA Booklist (Thu Sep 01 00:00:00 CDT 2016)

Starred Review How could an undeclared war with a tiny nation across the world become, according to former State Department official George Ball, "probably the greatest single error made by America in its history"? Leave it to Newbery medalist Freedman and his absorbing, concise style to explain it. He begins with a brief presentation of Vietnam's long road to revolution, starting with a Chinese invasion in the first century BCE and continuing with French colonization. The main focus, however, is on North Vietnamese leader Ho Chi Minh: his rise, his ties to the Communist party, and his bid for Vietnam's independence. The text then shifts to U.S. involvement in the region and how President Kennedy and subsequent presidents became caught in the cross fire of opposing opinions on Vietnam, which became the first line of defense against Communist expansion. Freedman effectively conveys how a presupposed "easy" American victory in Vietnam was anything but, contrasting the grisly guerrilla warfare with the antiwar protests and divisive sentiments back in the U.S. Numerous vintage photos, many now iconic, add an even greater emotional impact to Freedman's account. The text concludes with a thought-provoking and hopeful chapter on the reconciliation between the once embattled enemies. Freedman makes one of history's greatest messes easy to follow in this slim, but stellar, offering. HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: Freedman's books are almost exclusively award winners, making this a must for all history shelves.

School Library Journal Starred Review (Thu Sep 01 00:00:00 CDT 2016)

Gr 6-8 In his customary well-honed prose, Freedman presents a coherent overview of the Vietnam War. First he retraces Vietnam's 2,000 year struggle to become and stay independent and how the United States went from ally to aggressor (a result of shifting from fighting colonialism to opposing communism after World War II). He goes on to recount the major events in the war, the course of the antiwar movement in the United States, U.S. troop withdrawal, and the long process of reconciliation. Amid descriptions of larger events, the author offers favorable or sympathetic glimpses of frontline soldiers—including quotes from a North Vietnamese soldier's diary—and documents the war's escalating brutality on both sides in a matter-of-fact but not sensationalistic way. The many documentary photos include the screaming child Kim Phuc (with a caption that describes what became of her) but not some of the more well-known disturbing images. Though positively judicious next to Albert Marrin's rabidly opinionated America and Vietnam: The Elephant and the Tiger , Freedman's account leans toward the view that the carnage resulted from a perfect storm of missed opportunities for alliances or political solutions, misunderstood history and culture, wrongheaded strategic decisions, and mulish pride on the part of U.S. political and military leaders. The extensive back matter will be useful to serious students of the era. VERDICT Along with being more readable than the plethora of assignment titles on the subject, this is a clear-eyed view of a watershed event in U.S. history and a significant update to older histories for middle graders.— John Peters, Children's Literature Consultant, New York City

Publishers Weekly (Fri Oct 06 00:00:00 CDT 2023)

In an excellent study of the Vietnam War that examines the conflict and its aftermath from multiple angles, Freedman (We Will Not Be Silent) again tackles a complex historical event and breaks it down into an accessible account for young readers. Initial pages take the story back 2,000 years to describe how the Vietnamese "fought wars of independence against the Chinese, the French, the Japanese and finally the Americans," before going on to explain how the small Asian nation spent 30 years of the 20th century embroiled in war. Freedman lucidly recounts how Vietnamese revolutionary Ho Chi Minh went from working to overthrow French colonial rule and allying himself with the Americans during WWII to becoming a Communist leader fighting against the U.S., as well as how the Cold War and the containment policy of the United States led to its Sisyphean involvement in the conflict. Graphic photographs provide an up-close look at the war and the protests surrounding it. The author concludes with a poignant observation about the legacy of the war: a humbling reminder of the limits of power." A timeline, source notes, glossary, bibliography, and index are included. Ages 10-up. (Aug.)