Children of the River (Laurel-Leaf Contemporary Fiction)

I am a 6th grader. I read the book Children of the River by Linda Crew. The book is about a 16 year old girl, named Sundara, and her aunt's family who are all traveling from Cambodia to America. Sundara's aunt and her family don't know anything about what has happened to Sundara's family. Sundara's family was unable to escape from Cambodia. Sundara and her aunt's family left their home country because of the war. The Khmer Rouge army was coming and capturing all of the families that didn't have a chance to escape the country. Sundara boarded a boat with her aunt's family and fled from Cambodia to America. For Sundara, it is hard to live in America. They have to work really hard from dawn to dusk to make enough money to live in a house and buy food. My favorite part in the book is when Sundara falls in love. When Sundara is 18, she has to get married because it's Cambodian tradition. In her culture, parents usually arrange a marriage with another man (or woman if you're a man). In Sundara's case, she doesn't know the whereabouts of her family, so her aunt and uncle have to find another good, respectful Cambodian man for Sundara to get married to. That will be especially hard because they are in America now. Usually, the two people that are getting married have never met and are complete strangers to one another. There is a major problem with this plan. Sundara doesn't want to get married to a Cambodian, she wants to get married to an American boy that she met at school. Sundara's aunt and uncle forbid her to talk to this American boy because he is "white." Sundara really likes this boy and he really likes her. Find out what happens in Children of the River right now!

This book is amazing! It is about a Cambodian girl named Sundara,who immigrated to the USA when she was 13. She left her beloved Cambodia to escape the Khmer Rouge army, and left behind her mother, fater, brothers and sisters, and the only life she's ever known. Now at 17 she is still coping with the new American lifestyle. To her, it is very different in comparison to the strict up bringing of a proper Cambodian girl. She still continues to be shocked at the attitude of students toward thier teacher, American clothes, and many other things that were done differently in her country. She is in many ways a proper Cambodian girl, but she is trying to fit in as an American girl also. One big difference between the Cambodian lifestyle and the American one is she is not allowed to date. She meets Jonathan who is different than any boy she has ever known. She really enjoys being with him, but she must not tell her aunt and uncle, whom she lives with that she is meeting an American boy. They would never approve of it, and she's not held in very high esteem of her aunt in the first place. During all this time she has an emotional scar that has never been healed, because she just kept pushing it deeper inside herself. Sundara had many terrible things happen to her, but during this time of her life she must make many decisions, over come obstecles, and make huge changes. This book is very realistic and hard hitting. I belive everyone should read it.

America is a "melting pot". It's new race, new social system, new law and new life. The people come to America have to lose old prejudices and manners in some way. They have to adopt new standards. They begin their new way of life. That doesn't mean you have to abandon your own way of life. You can have them both. In this book, you can find racism. Sundara's aunt tells her not to date with American boys. A good Cambodian girl never dates. The girl should wait for her family to arrange her marriage. Her husband should be Cambodian, too. There is no way to marry a white boy, because her family thinks Americans are not serious about marriage. Some Americans get married and after a while, they want to divorce. Her family thinks all American boys are bad. They don't want to her to become a bad girl just because of an American boy. "All men are created equal". Everyone is the same on matter what color their skin is. You can't look down on others just because the color of their skin. This is an injustice. I like the book so much because my experience it is almost as same as Sundara except I came to America for studying. Sundara is from Cambodia. I am from China. She is seventeen. I am seventeen, too. She lives with her aunt's family, so do I. "At home Sundara was too American; at school she felt painfully aware of not being American enough. She didn't fit in anywhere." I have the same feeling. This book is so touched me. When I am reading the book, I am thinking and comparing myself to Sundara. I find a lot of things from the book. Sundara is really a nice girl. She tries to do her best for everything. It's not easy to live in two different kinds of cultures. Linda Crew put Sundara's growing and her aunt's changing at the same time. Linda arranges Sundara's Cambodian friend died to make Sundara think more about her relationship with the American boy Jonathan. His death makes Sundara realizes she should care what she has now not the past life she left behind. Before I read the book, I didn't think the people from different cultures could be together (boy friend and girl friend). Their backgrounds are totally different, especially the western country and the east country. They don't have too many things in common. So they can't share the same things. It's hard to be with each other without the same language. Now, I have some new ideas. Where they come from is not important, the most important thing is if the two people are right for each other. If they are happy to be with each other, then they should get together no matter what different color of skin they have. Love can happen between two different cultures. The lovers must understand each other's hearts very well so that they know their appearances don't matter.

Children of the River is a great book! Our 9th grade humanities class just finished reading it for our literature circle project. I have to say that I wanted to keep reading and reading once the assigned chapters were finished! I just couldn't put it down! Children of the River is a great book for children, teens, and adults!

Children of the River by Linda Crew is a very good book. I think it shows the struggles that could be going on inside someone, when they have to adapt to a new country and have a conflict of cultures including memories of a terrifying past, in an understanding way. The style of writing narrates the book and especially the characters' emotions and conflicts in a very compelling way that draws you into the book. The story is about a young Cambodian girl named Sundara who escapes with her aunt's family from the frightening threat of the Khmer Rouge invasion of Cambodia. Her family starts up a new life in America but the horrors she saw in her city in Cambodia still haunt her and she misses her country and her parents and siblings a lot. She also feels torn between her native culture and traditions and her new exciting American life which includes an American boy she loves. I would recommend Children of the River because the culture that is shown in the book is very interesting and because the characters seem very real and you get drawn into the book. The culture is shown in places all through the book and you learn interesting little things about Sundara and her family's beliefs and traditions as you are reading it. Events and the characters' emotions are shown with great detail and understanding, like when Sundara's aunt finds out that Sundara has been very upset inside about how hard she treats her and that Sundara thinks that her aunt blames her for the death of a baby. This is a very powerful part of the book. Someone may disagree with my recommendation of this book because they may say that the book is too dramatic, and so this would make it unrealistic. An example of this could be when Sundara kind of has a crying fit and half faints and has so stay in bed for a while. Her Grandmother thinks it is the spirit of the dead baby that haunts her but it is because Sundara has been so worried and tortured by the thought that her aunt blames her for the death of the child, and by memories of things in Cambodia. Things like this may be dramatic but I think they're still realistic because in a culture like Sundara's, where children are encouraged to not speak openly of their emotions and have to hold them inside themselves, then it can be very upsetting when there is a conflict. I recommend this book, it's an amazing and gripping read. I loved it!