cover image Water Buffalo Days: Growing Up in Vietnam

Water Buffalo Days: Growing Up in Vietnam

Huynh Quang Nhuong, Huynh Quang Nhuong, Quang Nhuong Huynh. HarperCollins Children's Books, $14.95 (128pp) ISBN 978-0-06-024957-1

Set in a tranquil, prewar Vietnam, this elegiac memoir uses Huynh's (The Land I Lost) childhood adventures with the family water buffalo as a vehicle for conjuring a lost world. When the beloved water buffalo Water Jug dies, Huynh, then six years old, is saddened to lose his playmate. However, he quickly finds an equally eager buddy in Tank, the strong young buffalo that his father brings home. As Tank grows up to become a fierce leader of the hamlet's entire herd and the pride of the family, the two spend endless days roaming the rice fields, catching field crabs, chasing fighting crickets and playing hide-and-seek. Huynh's pared-down, expressive prose relays his affection for Tank and hamlet life so warmly that readers will easily be transported into the foreign setting. Delicate black-and-white sketches of the villagers and water buffaloes capture the tender qualities of the text. The peaceful way of life so lovingly described is shattered in the final chapters, when war (""between the French forces and the Resistance led by Ho Chi Minh"") first reaches the hamlet and a stray bullet fells Tank. Sharing young Huynh's devastation, readers will come away with a more profound understanding of the casualties of war. Ages 7-10. (Nov.)