Children of the River (Laurel-Leaf Contemporary Fiction)

Synopsis

Sundara fled Cambodia with her aunt's family to escape the Khmer Rouge army when she was thirteen, leaving behind her parents, her brother and sister, and the boy she had loved since she was a child.

Now, four years later, she struggles to fit in at her Oregon high school and to be "a good Cambodian girl" at home. A good Cambodian girl never dates; she waits for her family to arrange her marriage to a Cambodian boy. Yet Sundara and Jonathan, an extraordinary American boy, are powerfully drawn to each other. Haunted by grief for her lost family and for the life left behind, Sundara longs to be with him. At the same time she wonders, Are her hopes for happiness and new life in America disloyal to her past and her people?

Publishers Weekly

Sundara Sovann, a Cambodian refugee, fled from the Khmer Rouge army when she was 13. Living with her aunt and uncle in the U.S., also ``boat people,'' she doesn't know what has happened to the rest of her family. Four years after her arrival, she is still haunted by the death of her infant cousin, with whose care she was entrusted on the nightmarish boat trip. And she still hasn't adjusted to the new culture. Torn between the Cambodian customs she is supposed to live up to at home, and the need to assimilate at high school, Sundara knows she shouldn't even be talking to American boys. Then she falls in love with Jonathan, a handsome football player. The resolution comes smoothly and plausibly, offering a pleasant and moving look at the way in which a survivor of great tragedy, having confronted overwhelming changes in her life, faces young adulthood. Ages 12-up. (Mar.)