Customer Reviews

The Whispering Cloth: A Refugee's Story

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Hmong is a group of people that live in the high mountains in South China or they could live in Laos but in the mountains. They speak four different kinds of languages: Lao, Chinese, Thai, and Vietnamese. Whenever I read a book about a language like Lao I get very interested and I want to ask my parents about it because they are from a refugee camp, too. I ask my parents lots of questions until it blows their minds because I ask too much questions!! For example I ask "Did you swim to Thailand?" "How did you get to New York?" and lots more. I ask lots of questions until they answer me. My parents survived from the refugee and the soldiers. They swam to Thailand, if the army or soldiers saw one of my parents they would ask questions or instead they would shoot one of them. What I heard was the army took the Lao people and took them to the refugee camp! This book is a believable story and you use your imagination about the cloth talking and speaking. I would recommend this book to any child or grown up who is interested in a refugee's story.

I wish I would have spent more time with the Hmong in Thailand. I found this story very moving and the immigrants strength and resilience in surviving wonderful to see. I am excited to share this with my students several of whom are refugees from war and conflict.

This book suffers for its illustrations, some of which are downright unattractive; there is very little actual needlework featured in the book. And, no new territory is covered by the text. This publication unintentionally makes the point that the time has come for people to stop marketing the Hmong refugee experience.