Nhuong’s book is the only work about Vietnam in English for young people. Whether it is read as the real-life adventures of a montagnard boy and his family and neighbors or as a book of folk tales, it serves as a valuable introduction to a very different culture, one that most Americans knew too little about during the Vietnam War and continue to know too little about afterward. Nhuong’s village is warm and friendly, but dangers lurk in the surrounding jungle, and the boy and his neighbors must be brave and cunning in order to solve their problems. Young American people will recognize the courage of the boy and his cousin as they confront an environment different from, but as dangerous as, their own. They will also enjoy the boy’s adven-tures, even though they are exotic, and learn about village life in Asia, even if the locale is not precisely the real central highlands of Vietnam.