Child of Two Worlds: An Autobiography of a Filipino-American or Vice Versa [Hardcover]

Norman Reyes (Author), Pete Sapasap (Illustrator)

Editorial Reviews

Review

Child Of Two Worlds is a richly detailed autobiographical chronicle of a cultural odyssey in the American colonial Philippines from 1922 to 1942. A boy born of a Filipino father and American mother takes the reader on a cross-cultural coming-of-age quest that is resolved in World War II when Japan invades the Philippines. Child Of Two Worlds is the story of the boy's inner journey and a blending of cultural insights and colorful history wrapped in an absorbing, well-told yarn. The narrative ends with the fall of the Corregidor island-fortress in May, 1942. After the war, on a student visa, Norman Reyes went on to earn a degree in English at Vanderbilt University, then returned briefly to the Philippines, until finally migrating to the U. S. in 1953. He worked in radio and television from 1937 to 1964. Now semi-retired, he is a part-time information specialist with the Hawaii state government. Child Of Two Worlds is insightful, absorbing, and very well written! -- Midwest Book Review --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 289 pages
• Publisher: Passeggiata Pr; 1st edition (October 1995)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0894107771
• ISBN-13: 978-0894107771
• Product Dimensions: 8.8 x 5.7 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #5,859,498 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4.0 out of 5 stars Fil-Am Philippines Commonwealth period, November 21, 2009

By 

Roberto P. Penas "quivera123" (Kansas City, MO) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Child of Two Worlds: An Autobiography of a Filipino-American or Vice Versa (Paperback)

Great reading - perhaps because I am a fil-am who has been there, so I have a biased perspective. To qualify, I am NOT of that period, which makes this interesting for those of us first generation Fil-ams in the post-war period. Very rare to see a memoir by a "non-VIP" - i.e. I was a war hero, dissident and or politician" and the author writes it with appealing candor. This is not for the war-buff as he was imprisoned after the fall of Corregidor but very informative and insightful into the time when the Philippines was still a US colony, of which there are few written accounts and stories from the Filipino side, most biographies it seems to me, being during and after WWII. He talks about how his parents met (he gleaned most of the info it seems from his mother who lived until the mid-70;s) and the bulk of the book is devoted to his childhood period- appropriately as indicated in the title -in Manila during the short Commonwealth period until it was interrupted by the Japanese invasion, by which point the narrator is already a young man in college. I wont give away more details but suffice to say this is a rare historical book by a greater rarity - a son of a Filipino father and American woman born during the 1920's when Manila was beginning to have American style suburb and amenities. I'm certainly glad I discovered this one.

5.0 out of 5 stars Rich in detail, January 17, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Child of Two Worlds: An Autobiography of a Filipino-American or Vice Versa (Hardcover)

Never has a writer colorfully described the World War II as Norman Reyes. He successfully remembered all the rich details of having to live in the Philippines during the pre-war era when the country was being Americanized. His rich details of the war and his heroic acts during the occupation of the Japanese brings us the front seat experience of how Filipinos and Americans became involved in such a bloody fight considered as one of the bloodiest in Philippine history