Personification in Inside Out and Back Again

Inside Out & Back Over again

Lai, Thanhha. Within Out and Back Again. New York: Harper, 2007. ISBN 9780061962790

Summary:

Imagine yourself young, comfortable, and content with life when of a sudden the place you know as home is nether abiding attack. Life isn't safe anymore in your homeland, so your family must make the difficult and dangerous decision to flee your country in gild to save your lives. This is Hà's journey. Information technology is a story of life – change, anguish, dreams, sorrow, promises, happiness, and most of all, resilience.

Analysis:

In this gratis verse novel, Thanhha Lai explores the life of a immature girl and the struggles she and her family face. Lai's poetic style carries the reader seamlessly through Hà'southward journey from the beginning of her life in Saigon to her eventual home in Alabama. Her words read tenderly and allow the reader to deeply connect with Hà.

Thanhha Lai utilizes the free verse poetic course in her novel Within Out and Back Once more. Lai uses frequent line breaks that emphasize natural breaks in the follow of speech or a sentence. This normally occurs in her novel with verbs or prepositional phrases beginning a line. Near lines are less than seven (7) words long. The consistency in brusk lines and the varied length of lines allows the reader to pause and completely have in Lai's language.

Lai employs a multifariousness of figurative language techniques in order to create a brilliant picture of Hà'southward journey. Throughout the novel, the reader will find evidence of simile, metaphor, personification, onomatopoeia, and imagery. These techniques help identify the reader inside Hà's Saigon school hunkered downwardly in a safe place, next to her family aboard the transport, exterior the family unit tent in Guam, beside her repeating a grade, and finally, at peace with the loss of her father. Lai'south novel is a beautiful, poetic masterpiece based on a real life experience.

Beneath are examples of Thanhha Lai's beautiful use of figurative language:

Simile

"I vow

to ascent starting time every morning

to stare at the dew

on the greenish fruit

shaped like a lightbulb." (p. 9)

"The breeze still cool

nosotros bounce beyond the span

shaped like a crescent moon

where I'thou non to go by myself." (p. 32)

"In the distance

bombs

explode similar thunder,

slashes

lighten the sky,

gunfire

falls similar rain." (p .48)

"Black seeds spill

like clusters of eyes

wet and crying." (p. 60)

Onomatopoeia

"I listen to

the classy, swish

of Mother'southward handheld fan." (p. 67)

Personification

"We clap and handclapping

as the ships depict together

and kiss." (p. 92)

Metaphor

The American transport

tows ours

with a steel braid

thick as my torso." (p. 92)

Imagery

"Tall and pig-bellied,

blackness cowboy hat,

tan cowboy boots,

cigar smoking,

teeth shining,

scarlet in face up,

aureate in hair." (p. 111)

Awards and Review Excerpts:

-2011 National Book Award Winner

- 2012 Newbery Honor Book

- Publishers Weekly's All-time Children's Fiction of 2011

- Washington Post Best Children's Books of 2011

- New York Times Best Seller

From Booklist, starred review: "Based in Lai'south personal experience, this showtime novel captures a kid–refugee's struggle with rare honesty. Written in accessible, brusque free–verse poems, Hà'due south immediate narrative describes her mistakes—both humorous and heartbreaking; and readers will exist moved by Hà'south sorrow as they recognize the anguish of being the outcast."

From The Horn Volume: "Lai's spare linguistic communication captures the sensory disorientation of changing cultures likewise as a refugee's complex emotions and kaleidoscopic loyalties."

From Publishers Weekly: "A series of poems about English language grammer offer humor and a lens into the difficulties of adjusting to a new language and customs ("Whoever invented English/ should exist bitten/ by a ophidian"). An incisive portrait of human being resilience."

From School Library Journal: "Sensory language describing the rich smells and tastes of Vietnam draws readers in and contrasts with Hà's perceptions of banal American food, and the immediacy of the narrative will appeal to those who do not commonly enjoy historical fiction." ~ Jennifer Rothschild

From Bulletin of the Center for Children'due south Books: "In this gratuitous-verse narrative, Lai is sparing in her details, painting big pictures with few words and evoking abundant visuals."

Connections:

Locate Saigon on a map and research The Vietnam War to help provide groundwork knowledge.

Collect and share Thanhha Lai's second novel: Listen, Slowly ISBN 9780062229182

Create a "featured poet" display nigh Thanhha Lai. Be sure to include information from the author's notation found at the cease of Within Out and Back Again.

Ask students to select a pivotal event in their lives and write a free verse poem inspired by Lai's style.

Collect, share, make connections and compare Lai'southward poesy novel to other novels where young adults incur great changes or challenges in life, such equally:

- Number the Stars past Lois Lowery ISBN 978054757709

- Hatchet past Gary Paulsen ISBN 9781416936473

- Rock Trick by John Reynolds Gardner ISBN 9780064401326

Create a collection of flick books about immigration, such as:

- Coming to America: The Story of Immigration by Betsy Maestro ISBN 9780590441513

- The Proper noun Jar by Yangsook Choi ISBN 978075691630

     - If Your Name Was Changed at Ellis Island by Ellen Levine ISBN 9780590438292

Bask the journey!

~ Mandy

reynoldsfalit1980.blogspot.com

Source: http://mrsschneiderreads.blogspot.com/2015/10/inside-out-back-again.html

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