Customer Reviews

All The Broken Pieces

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Matt Pin was airlifted from Vietnam at the age of 10 and adopted by an American family. He is now in seventh grade and has adjusted well to his new family. He remembers the early adoption classes and meetings when he was learning to speak English, and he's glad they helped him remember the customs and traditions of his culture. His American parents now have a biological son, but Matt has always felt loved and appreciated.

The downside is that Matt also remembers Vietnam. He hasn't forgotten the sounds, the smells, and the horrors of war. He knows his father was an American soldier, but he's not sure why he left his mother behind. Should he want to find this missing father or just put it all in the past? He knows his mother told him she loved him and that was why she sent him away, but how do you give up someone you love?

What haunts him the most is the younger brother he left behind. Matt can't find the words to share the tragic story that separated him from the toddler. His loving American parents hope time will heal the many wounds created by the awfulness of war. Their encouragement, along with that of another Vietnam vet, the game of baseball, and Matt's interest in music, work together to start the healing process.

ALL THE BROKEN PIECES is the first novel for author Ann E. Burg. Written in verse, the spare language brings focus to the raw emotions felt by all the characters. Burg examines the effects of war from many vantage points as she involves her readers in this turbulent time.

Even readers without a connection to this controversial war will come away with an understanding of the widespread damage done when war is chosen over peace.

Reviewed by: Sally Kruger, aka "Readingjunky"

Not only is "All The Broken Pieces" beautifully written, I found it compelling in every way:

The story is riveting -- a young Vietnamese boy adopted by an American couple at the end of the Vietnam war, how he outwardly acclimatizes to his new family, school and country but has a rich and troubled inner life riddled with nightmares and waking fears and how these and others' prejudices affect him;

The verse is spare yet utterly evocative in its brevity -- it communicates better than any regular prose novel the way images and conflicting thoughts and feelings tangle in people's minds every day;

The emotions it conveys from and about the characters are affecting -- you can't help but feel the small happinesses, the pain, the joy of resolution..

And all of this in a quick read that already has me returning to it to find passages that especially moved me. I think this book will resonate for anyone, and it will certainly have special relevance for those of us who lived through the Vietnam era, who had friends or loved ones who fought in the war, or who was there him or herself.

Initially disorienting. Immediately intriguing. Constantly moving. Deftly touching.

This book is appropriate for readers of all ages, young and old. Older readers, already aware of some of the history of Vietnam, will maybe learn a new side of the conflict (and its aftermath). Younger readers will be drawn to the story of the young boy who is alienated, but never stops in his struggle to find his place between the past and the present.

The verse format is beautiful and works perfectly to complement the emotional complexity of the tale.

I love these kinds of books. When you think 'narrative poetry', long boring classes of high school English probably pop into your mind. Not so with "All the Broken Pieces". This book is all the best of narrative poetry.
I must admit I was surprised by the description and cover of the book. How in the world could the author fit baseball, Vietnam and adoption into a story that I would be interested in? Quite beautifully is how.
Matt Pin is a young man who was thrust by his Vietnamese mother onto a rescue helicopter bound for the US. Once here, Matt is adopted by a loving couple but struggles with his feelings of alienation, loss, horror and guilt. To pack so much hurt and pain inside a twelve-year body is almost too much to bear and your heart aches to pick this child up and crush him to your chest.
The words are powerful and chilling and the white spaces on the page speak as powerfully as the written; what is unsaid is as painful as those words the narrator speaks. As Matt's piano teacher says, "Music is not simply playing notes, you have to play the silence too."
A beautiful, haunting read. However, it is being targeted as a Newberry winner and suggested as a read for young adults. I doubt many will like this book and will not value it for the powerful message it contains. Young adults, particulary boys, will not understand the horrors of war and certainly won't understand the historic implications. While it should be an award winner, I think adults will enjoy the read and value the language more.

All the broken pieces is a book length poem without chapter breaks and constant flashbacks to the Vietnam war wich makes the whole thing very depressing and confusing. It's short and I thought it would go by fast but it is so hard to follow that it bogged down the whole thing. I learned nothing from this book.