Year of the Jungle
When young Suzy’s father leaves for Vietnam, she struggles to understand what this means for her and her family. What is the jungle like? Will her father be safe? When will he return? The months slip by, marked by the passing of the familiar holidays and the postcards that her father sends. With each one, he feels more and more distant, until Suzy isn’t sure she’d even recognize her father anymore.
“It’s a deceptively simple message of reassurance that readers who may currently be in Suzy’s situation can take to heart, whether their loved ones return changed, as hers did, or don’t return at all.”
–Publishers Weekly, STARRED REVIEW
“Collins mines her own experience to tell a tender, personal story of war seen through a child’s eyes. Collins’ unflinching first-person account details the fears and disappointments of the situation as a child would experience them…Indeed, children missing parents in all kinds of circumstances will find comfort here.”
–Booklist, STARRED REVIEW
“…The book also reassures readers that despite any parent’s absence, their love for their children will never leave. “I hope people will read the book, even if they don’t have a deployed family member, even if they’re not part of a military family,” says Collins. “Maybe it will help some kids understand what other kids might be going through if they have a parent deployed overseas.”
–-The Hollywood Reporter
Suzanne Collins mines her own childhood memories, transforming them with tremendous skill into a story that is resonant and truthful and timeless and remarkably child-centered. James Proimos’s illustrations are stylistically simple but wisely executed, full of sensitivity and power and poignancy, along with occasional moments of whimsy (that cat!).”
— Cooperative Children’s Book Center
RELATED ITEMS
Other Works
