Escaping In Inside Out And Back Again

“Every new year Mother visits the I Ching Teller of Fate. This year he predicts our lives will twist inside out” (3). The novel Inside Out & Back Again, by Thanhha Lai, is about the experiences of a little girl named Ha and her family as they flee from their home and find a new one in America. Fleeing, inside out, finding, and back again are all experiences that refugees have to go through while escaping their homes and starting new lives.

The difficulties of escaping are some things a person must deal with when trying to flee. Fleeing from Vietnam was very hard because “under South Vietnam's stringent emigration law...the only legal way for a citizen to go abroad...is to be married to a foreigner” (Butterfield). Escaping was very difficult

In the article “Syrian Refugees”, Paul Salopek writes that the refugees “...were running from the bullets and knives of the Islamic State”(Salopek). Fearing their own people, they are in a footrace and death is a contender. Individuals are afraid to escape because the war is right outside of their houses. In the novel Inside Out & Back Again by Thanhha Lai, Ha describes what her surroundings are like. In the poem “Early Monsoon”, Ha hears “...bombs explode like thunder, slashes lighten the sky, gunfire falls like rain…[the war is] not that far after all” (48). The realization is that the war is closer to their home than they thought. Personals fear for what will come in the future and what will the war bring. Refugees all around the world have to be around the fear and panic, which are

but when they can, the friendship makes everything better. In the book The Migration and settlement of Refugees in Britain, the author, A. Bloch states: “...nearly everyone had made new friends since coming to live in the UK…” and, in summary, made them more successful than ones who are lonely and stick with their own refugees. Once refugees find friends in a new place, all hope is not lost. They tend to survive easier. In the poem “Most Relived Day,” Ha is at her school and she sees “two students run into the class, giggling...smiles appear…[Ha] write[s in her] journal that [today] is the Most Relieved Day…”(183-185, Lai). Ha makes her first friends, she has been bullied at school and hasn’t had very good experiences at school, until these two kids came. She was so grateful when they were kind to her. Having friendships makes a refugee’s life just a little more