Children of the River

by Linda Crew

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?

Genres: Young Adult, Historical Fiction, Fiction, School, Romance, Realistic Fiction, Read For School

213 pages, Library Binding

First published January 1, 1989

About the author

My early books were for young readers, and perhaps my best-known is my first, Children of the River. Set against the backdrop of the Cambodian refugee crisis of 1979, it’s still used in schools and English-as-a-second-language classes across the country twenty-seven years since publication. My two most recent—Brides of Eden: a True Story Imagined and A Heart for Any Fate: Westward to Oregon 1845—were published as cross-over titles, and I suspect have been read by more adults than teenagers.

With my new book, I have had to take a completely different turn. When I inadvertently became addicted to both Oxycodone and Xanax after undergoing total knee replacement surgery, there was suddenly no material more compelling to me than my own survival and healing. And when I realized the extent to which the problem of addiction to prescription drugs was affecting people all across the nation, I knew I needed to speak up and be at least one of the people telling this story. If the sharing of my pharmaceutically-induced trainwreck can comfort somebody else or, even better, help save them from heading down this horrible path in the first place, it will help me feel that perhaps some good can come of my past four years.

Reviews

[Patrick Peterson · Rating 4 out of 5]

June 17, 2012 - This book was on my son's summer reading list for going in to 8th grade. My wife read it and loved it. Arthur is almost finished with it and is enjoying it. I was totally captivated and so psyched that my son's English teacher required it. What a happy surprise.

Themes:
1. Horror of communism - hinted and explicit - throughout the book. Perhaps understated in the details, but that still came across very powerfully

2. Difficulty of emigration & immigration

3. Cushy, shallow concerns of most non-immigrant kids - but not all.

4. Libertarian
pro market - making money
Anti gov't social security - pro-family alternative!
Pro immigration - benefits for everyone
Pro self responsibility - so refreshing. No whining!
Anti-communist - horrors of their rule
Work/achievement/equality vs. status by birth. P.187
How hard immigrants need to work to survive and thrive in US & the benefits of freedom to do so
Importance, honor and status of American citizenship p.187
Importance of one person (a loved individual) p197
Realistic about actions making the difference, not prayers p. 211

5. Guilt - Sundara's guilt for not being able to save her aunt's baby
P. 192

6. Khmer Superstitions
- p.192 bad karma leaving house without ceremonies
- Several spots - touching a child's head makes him dumb and takes away soul

7. Honoring friends and family - strong tradition
P.202 Moni buying rose for Sundara's Aunt's arrival
Many other instances

8. Optimism, hope is justified p. 212
- Soka's sister made it
- Sundara's little sister was found and saved by a stranger

Negative parts of the book: Kindle version, which I read, had about a zillion typos. Usually pretty minor. But at one point a half page or so was inserted/duped in the wrong place and perhaps some was missing.

Overall - I Highly recommend this book!

2021-06-21 - I later read a book that would be a great companion to this - "Short Haired Detention" by Channy Chhi Laux. Highly recommended autobiography of what it was like living through the Cambodian holocaust. See my review if interested.

[Infosifter · Rating 4 out of 5]

Sundara is a Khmer girl who escapes from Cambodia with some relatives with nothing but the clothes on her back and her life. Burden by guilt over a tragedy she was unable to prevent, she must find her way in America, where everything is different. 3.5 stars

[Ashlyn · Rating 1 out of 5]

I didn't like this book. We read it in our language arts class and I despised having to read it every day. The plot is drawn out and boring and her aunt is really weird. I would not recommend this book.

[Danielle · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really enjoyed and appreciated this story! It's 1979 and Sundara is a 17-year-old Cambodian refugee living in Oregon. She escaped from the Khmer Rouge with her aunt and uncle's family four years before. She does not know what happened to her parents and siblings.

Not only does this story illuminate an immigrant's struggle with living in between her Khmer culture and expectations, and American culture, we also see the years of writing letters and receiving letters from strangers in camps, the aftermath of living through extreme trauma, the years of hope, the years of working hard in school and going straight to physical labor.

It's amazing to get a small window into one (fictional) experience. Sundara does not understand the extent of the violence and killing in Cambodia until she comes to America and learns about it in the news. Refugees finally move on and remarry only to later discover that their spouse is alive in a camp...

Yes, the boy who's fascinated by Sundara's poem is a blond, blue-eyed football player. But I found him refreshingly three dimensional. I love that he stands up to his parents and that his dad actually listens and takes real action.

I like that this novel doesn't tie everything up in a neat bow, as far as the teen romance, but gives us a realistic yet satisfying ending.

So much to learn from novels like these. I applaud Linda Crew's efforts and also hope for more #ownvoices YA refugee and immigrant stories. We all need to read many, many of these.

"Surely America was an amazing country, and worth feeling thankful for. But the way some Americans talked, you'd think this was the only country on earth worth loving" (189).

[Becca · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this book back in middle school, when it appeared on our summer reading list. I enjoyed the story then, but like other readers, I rolled my eyes a bit at the aunt's behavior. "Why couldn't she be more understanding?" I asked myself.

The story has stayed with me for over a decade after that initial reading, and it's aged beautifully. I see now how deeply and richly Linda Crew incorporated questions of love, loss, guilt, assimilation, and responsibility. I'm so glad I encountered this book in middle school --- it set me up for a lifelong journey towards greater empathy and cross-cultural dialogue.

So if you're reading this book right now for school and you're frustrated, stick with it. Ask yourself why the characters are acting as they do. Put yourself in their shoes. Examine their priorities, both personal and cultural. These kinds of mental exercises will serve you well throughout your life.

And if you're protesting, "But it's so cliched!" ... well ... yeah, forbidden love is "cliched" in the sense that it happens all the time. So do cultural clashes, and generational clashes, and guilt. Writers aren't cliched for discussing these topics; they're cliched when they parrot someone else's viewpoint and don't add their own perspective to the discussion. If a topic keeps coming up over and over, across different people and cultures and genres, with lots of different takes, that's probably a good sign that we need to sit up and pay attention to this thing that's so important to so many different groups.

[Allison Chan · Rating 1 out of 5]

SO. F*CKING. CLICHE!!!!!!

First of all, there's FORBIDDEN ROMANCE, one of the most cliche, overused topics nowadays. And even worse, it's written so terribly that I can't stand it! And it has to work in the end! Why can't authors write tragic ends or something?!

Secondly, it's the whole I-came-from-another-country-and-meet-some-popular-guy-who-likes-me. Oh. My. Freaking. God. There's like the smallest of chances that that'll happen. Seriously. If I was the new kid, every single popular guy would probably tease me to no end. Goddamn it, Sundara. Don't fight with Cathy Gates over her man.

And thirdly, the plot was soooooo retarded. It's like writing a flat, deadpan autobiography on Sundara. I felt no emotion because they were expressed so terribly! Sundara worries about some random thing that makes no sense to me, and the way Sundara talks destroys everything. She acts like everyone knows her family and customs. Well, guess what, Sundara, in case your little brain hasn't figured out? Practically everyone around you is American, and they probably won't give a damn about your family and customs!

And too much homework assigned for this book :'(

[Abigail Mohn · Rating 4 out of 5]

Plot: 4/5
Pacing: 3.5/5
Writing: 4.5/5
Characters: 4.5/5
General Enjoyment: 4.5/5
Average: 4.2 stars, rounded down

Children of the River begins where most books of this genre end. Sundara is a Cambodian girl who is forced to flee her home country with her aunt's family under the Khmer Rouge regime. In most books, going to America would be a happy ending for this story. But this illustrates the difficulty of adjusting to a new culture in a fascinating way. I had never considered some of the cultural implications of a Cambodian girl adjusting to American culture, especially in the primary conflict of the story.

The writing and the characters were both excellent. You can't help but love and root for both Sundara and Jonathan, and for as short a book as this was, they were both well-developed and interesting characters. I will admit I was a bit skeptical about the fact that the author wasn't Cambodian herself, but it is clear that she did her research. She worked with Cambodian refugees who fled to America and discussed some of the cultural problems faced by these people she talked to first-hand. From what I could tell, she was very sensitive about the topic and portrayed it well, though I obviously don't have my personal knowledge to compare. I would like to read a book/memoir by someone who experienced these two cultures themselves, but from what I could tell, I think the author did this well.

If you want a story that's both sweet and tragic, a mix of a fascinating cross-cultural story and a sweet teen romance, check out this novel. It's a bit slow-paced, with a bit of a circular plot especially toward the end, but for the most part I was intrigued and invested. I'd recommend it for 11+, since it is pretty clean but discusses hard topics like war and genocide.

[Stephanie A. · Rating 5 out of 5]

For a brief time, it seemed the New Year had brought good fortune to the household of Tep Naro in the Cambodian village of Ream: a fat-cheeked new daughter born to his wife, Soka.

Having read about this title in Speaking for Ourselves, Too, intrigued that the author had been inspired by a real Cambodian family who worked on her farm, I was so stunned to find a 90s copy at my local library last week that I dropped everything to read it. And though I embarrassingly forgot this fact until afterward, I first read this book as an actual teen, and was impressed enough then to give it four stars. If anything, it's gotten better.

I felt connected to this family from the first sentence, glued to the page through two quick chapters of escaping on foot and then an unpleasant sea voyage before the story skips ahead four years, to when Sundara and her relatives are established in their own house in the U.S., but still without news of her parents and siblings left behind in their homeland. Though well used to American routines and speaking English by now, she still doesn't feel like she entirely belongs anywhere, and struggles with which culture's expectations to meet in various circumstances.

In addition to that fascinating peek into what it's like to be a teenager who had to move to a foreign country at the tender age of 13, from her family you see a lot of the "model immigrant" mindset about being grateful toward America for taking them in/giving them an opportunity to reestablish themselves through hard work, and scorn for a member of the community who makes them look bad by getting arrested. There's also criticism of American habits like dating and fast food, and certain stereotypes/biases they've carried with them from their homeland that I would never have thought of (ex. the Chinese can "practically smell" money to be made, and marrying one isn't a bad choice because then your children will have lighter, prettier skin).

This is a slender volume, but an eye-opening one, filled with more memorable characters than my sieve-brain suggests. I stayed as invested as I was on the first page all the way to the end. Mostly, though, I'm impressed that it made me cry no fewer than three times. It's not afraid to get harsh about the consequences of a hostile regime change, or to leave some questions unanswered.

[Raphael · Rating 3 out of 5]

Children of the river by linda crew is a book That takes place in the 70s about a Cmbodian refuge girl fleeing from the kamer roge to america. Her name is Sundara and she left both her parents behind and leving with her aunt uncle and cousins to get on a crowdwed cargo boat, filled with hundereds of other refugies. With hardly anny food or water on the crowded boat sundaras aunt Soka asks her to take care of her baby on the boat. Unable to find anny food for the baby sundara is forced to throgh the dead babys body oveboard. Now in America Sundara is haunted by her dead cousuns ghost along with the aditional guilt from her aunt. She also likes an american boy named jonathin who acording to cambodian tradition and her aunt is completely forbiden as a matter of fact even talking to him is forbidin. Eventualy Soka forgives Sundara for her chileds death. After this the haunting memories go away for Sundara. After Soka heres that Jonathins dad is a docktor volinter in cambodia and that Jonathin wants to fallow in his footsteps Soka decides to give him a chance.
I can conect this book with myself because my mom told me about when she imigrated to America and about how she experinced culture shock. She wasn't fleeing from the kamer roge and she didn't have to through her dead body of the side of a ship. (At least i hope not.) I dont even think she came here on a boat.
I gave this book three stars. This is because although it teached me alot about cambodian tradition and about imigration I didnt find it all that interesting. It would have been beter if there was a twist at the end of the book. I recomend this book to annybody who is interested in real world events or has imigrated.

[Kally Sperry · Rating 1 out of 5]

just would like everyone to know that this woman profited off of a cambodian family to create this book! there was no compensation given to that family and essentially no credit either. to have a white woman write about something she knows nothing about is incredibly strange to begin with, but the lack of care towards this family’s story and traumas is devastating. let cambodian people tell their own stories. go read Ma and Me by Putsata Reang to understand the cambodian experience from a cambodian person.

[Andrea Stoddard · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent book. Story telling well done and I feel I have learned a lot. I didn't know much about the Cambodian refugees until I read this book.

[Jamie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Children of the river by Linda Crew is another book with an immigration theme. The main character Sundara leaves Cambodia with her aunts family to escape the communist Khmer Rouge army and heads to the U.S. She is only thirteen and she leaves behind family including her parents, her brother, sister, and a boy she has cared about since she was young. She constantly struggles to fit in at her high school in Oregon, but at the same time, she struggles to keep some of her Cambodian traditions that would make her parents happy. Sundara soon meets Jonathan, the star of the football team. The two have a relationship but Sundara's aunt, Soka wants it to end. She tries to be a good Cambodian girl and not date, as it is tradition to have family arrange marriage in Cambodia. But the two become closer. Sundara does hold on to a few traditions like speaking Khmer and French as well as respecting her elders. Ultimately she convinces her parents to look beyond the boundaries of culture.
I definitely see a text to world connection with this story. The main theme is how immigrants struggle to adjust when entering this country. I believe this book showed this struggle accurately as Sundara had to balance between wanting to fit in as well as keep some Cambodian traditions.
I would rate this book a 5 because I really enjoyed it and I thought it was very realistic as it was difficult for Sundara to please herself and her parents. At times she even appealed to feel guilty about not being what her family would consider a "good Cambodian girl". I would recommend this book to anyone who can relate to the struggles of adjusting to a new culture.

[Kristine Kouba · Rating 4 out of 5]

Plot summary: The main character's family has fled from Cambodia to the United States. They wanted to escape the war, killings, and horror taking place in their country. This story shows how the Sundara, the main character adjusts to life in America

Main Characters: Sundara - long black hair, shy, teenager, learned French first, now is trying to learn English. In high school, wants to fit in, wants to adjust well to American traditions/ways, but wants and is pressured to stay true to her family's values. Longing to know if her parents are still alive, feels guilty about the death of Soka's child. Tries not to fall for Johnathan, but being with him feels comforting and good to her. Admires Johnathon's father, she wants to become a doctor

Johnathan - star football player, has the cheerleader girlfriend, parents are wealthy. He is an only child, not in love with playing football - wishes coach and others would not push him as much/make football seem incredibly important. Becomes interested in Sundara because of a project. Doesn't seem to understand the rules of Sundara's aunt and uncle. Thinks Sundara is beautiful and enjoys spending time with her

Key issues: war, family values, falling in love, Cambodia

Other interesting information: passages from text:
"Changing schools was nothing compared to changing countries" p. 12

"And surely being faithful did not mean involving herself with an American boy. Shame" p. 126

"...No she mustn't think of it. She was not allowed to love Johathan McKinnon. Still, whatever happened, it was a wonderful feeling, knowing her loved her" p. 159

[06sydneyj · Rating 3 out of 5]

How would you like to be whisked away one night without your parents or knowing where your going? Then come to find out your going to a totally different country and all your friends and family are being killed by the second. This is what happened to Sandara, a Khmer girl from Cambodia, in the book "Children of the River" by Linda Crew. She is now a Junior in High school 4 years later and nothing has changed, things are still just as hard.

If trying to find new friends and fitting into a new culture isn't hard enough, how about never finding your parents and having the love of your life and future husband killed? Things would be hard ecspecially if you fell in love with a forbidden American boy. This is somewhat how Sandaras life is, but because of the trick ending no one knows what happens to her.

I liked this book even though it was very informational and wasn't much of a story. The best part for me was the romance so I would probably reccomend it to young adults or grownups. I learned alot about Cambodia and the Pol Pot era and feel very bad for all the families that suffered through that. I gave this book 3 stars, good job Linda!

[Cloe Stocking]

Childeren of the River by Linda Crew is about a cambodian family comeing to America because they are running from the Khmer Rouge after teh Vietnam War. The main girl, Sundara, is trying to fit in in a new school adn enviroment. She falls in love with the football star Jonathan, but it is against her culture to date. Through the book she is hiding their love from her Aunt. They are discovered and she is not alowed to see him any more. She loves him so much through that she tries convincing her Aunt to let her see him and/or date. I thought that the book was pretty well written. The author is a cultural outsider, but she was still able to show the American Dream very well by showing them looking for a better life. It was very authentic and felt real while you were reading it. it is also in 3rd persaon perspective and done well. I would recomend this book to people looking to learn/read about the American Dream.

[Angela Blount · Rating 4 out of 5]

Culturally rich and poignantly memorable. A young refugee of Cambodia's horrific civil war struggles to assimilate into American culture, and even more courageously, into life at a public high school. A haunting trauma from her past catches up to her, demanding to be faced even as she is otherwise overwhelmed with the possibility of experiencing first love.

This story clung to me for years after I read it, and proved to be a tremendous insight when I encountered a number of Somalian refugee students in the middle of my high school career. While the cultures bare little resemblance, the difficulties of immigration, culture shock, post-traumatic stress, and language barriers all bare the same echo. I don't know if I would have been able to be as empathetic toward their situation if I hadn't previously been introduced to this book.

[05gmiyster · Rating 2 out of 5]

Pages:213
This book is about a girl named Sundara and she lives in a place called Panom Phen. And she has to leave to Oregon because her town is being attaked by Nazis. So she moved there and she has to make new girl freinds but not boy ones though because she cant hang with boys unless the parents approve because their parents have to make a arranged marriages and thats the only boy they can hang out with. Because thats her religon so then she meets this boy named Johnathan and falls in love but she cant talk to him. Because her parent don't want her talking to a American boy. Because it could be bad luck.
So then she finds out that the person she is supposed to marry got killed in the war so she is so sad. But then she falls in love with Johnathan again. And they get married and live happaly ever after.

[Anh Gordon · Rating 4 out of 5]

Part of my sophomore homeschooling son's literature curriculum, read in companion with _First they killed my father_.

This book is decidedly "happier" than _First They Killed My Father_ as it is fictional and mostly takes place in the US, after Sundara and her aunt, uncle and cousins successfully flee their native country of Cambodia.

The story is told from Sundara's third person point of view. She was 12 when she fled Cambodia, and the bulk of the book takes place four years after, in a small town in Oregon. Her family had been sponsored by a church in Oregon and they worked hard and saved money and were finally able to move into their own home. Both Naro, Sundara's uncle, and Soka, her aunt, are able to get jobs, and her cousins are growing up as regular Americans.

The primary conflicts are person vs person (Sundara and her strained relationship with her aunt) and person vs person (Sundara's conflicts within herself as she finds herself in between American and Cambodian cultural customs, and Sundara's own personal guilt for something that happened in the past) and more loosely, person vs society, as Sundara and her family struggle against their expatriate Khmer community and their expectations.

I had a negative impression of this book after reading the first chapter because I felt that it was poorly written and the dialogue and interactions between the characters seemed stilted and unnatural. However, from the second chapter on, the story is quite riveting. When I read the interview with the author at the end, I could see why the first chapter is so poorly done compared to the rest of the chapters. The first chapter takes place in Cambodia, and is pretty much a prologue. The author is essentially the real life "Mr. Bonner" and her employment of several Cambodian refugee workers for her farm was what led to her interest in the Cambodian refugee community in her town and ultimately, to her writing this story. She developed friendships and relationships with many of the refugees and interviewed them extensively to get their stories. The characters in the book are fictional, and Sundara is a compilation of many of the Cambodian teenage girls that the author interviewed.

Like Sundara's family, my SE Asian native country was also overtaken by an extremist, cold blooded Communist regime, and like her family, my family resettled in the US in the mid to late 1970s. So there were many illustrations in the book that were similar to my own experience, and I am so glad the author was able to capture these.

Highlights of my favorite things about the book:

1) refugee life--there is definite conflict between adapting to your new country and clinging onto the memories of your beloved but fallen native country. On the one hand, you know it is necessary to move on and adapt but at the same time, sometimes the new customs are so counter to your own upbringing and native culture that it seems like you are betraying yourself and your old country if you adapt. And yet, there is also the feeling that you are betraying your new country by feeling sad for your old country. That tug of war lasts for a long time with refugees.

2) Soka, Sundara's aunt, is trying to raise Sundara, but as she last saw Sundara's mother, her sister, years ago in Cambodia, she has no idea how her sister would raise her. Because Soka is holding on to the hope that Sundara's mother is still alive, she has to imagine what her sister would want, and do according to that, instead of just raising Sundara as she would her own daughter. I think the conflict there is quite real.

3) I am a bit surprised by the negative reviews because the "forbidden love" theme is "cliched". This is a bit unfair. Parents of all cultures and countries--including America--have specific standards for whom they want their children to marry, be it race, ethnicity, education, or social class. I am not condoning it, just stating that it is common worldwide, throughout all of history. And we are all told to tell stories about things that we know...and we all feel good and valued and happy to learn that we are not the only ones experiencing things and we all want a sense of "community" with others who have felt and seen things that we have. But God forbid we read a story that has been told before--because it is "cliched". I was "forbidden" to date in high school and for sure forbidden to date outside of my ethnicity. My parents were going to arrange my marriage. My parents eventually had to adapt because I would not tolerate that, but my other Vietnamese, Indian, Mexican, Chinese friends all experienced similar attitudes by their parents. This is a common expatriate thing, and a common human experience. Not to tell it would be unnatural and unrealistic.

4) I think the author was very respectful in the depicting the English dialogue between Sundara and her English speaking friends. The author points out where the difficulties are--sounds made in English that are not used in the Khmer language, like the "s" sound and the "th" sound, and thus, this is why Cambodians speaking English would have difficulty making these sounds, if they make them at all. I like that when the Cambodians are speaking to each other, the author does not depict any "language nuances" because it is implied that they are speaking in their native language. I think this was well done.

All in all, I enjoyed this book, as a Vietnamese refugee and a naturalized American citizen. I liked that the author incorporated so many aspects and issues that war refugees had to deal with. While Sundara is more honest and bold with her American classmates than what I suspect the average newly arrived refugee would be, I still think it is a good, well written book.

4/5 recommended for anyone who is interested in refugees, the SE Asian conflicts of the 1970s, hopeless romantics.

[E · Rating 4 out of 5]

A nice blend of some challenging EQ issues for young adults. Also, a soft introduction to some very heavy geopolitical issues as well. For better or worse, introducing genocide as a side story is a murky thing, but prime for rich character development.

I read this decades ago as a pre-teen and I’d be lying if I said I loved it then but it was a fast read and I was pulled in by the complex issues it raised about genocide and immigration. I was in 8th grade and had to look up the Cambodian genocide and otherwise would have never been exposed to this important issue (and I mean ever, because my honors/AP history classes never really covered it; thanks english class!). Since my grandmother was bullied by the Klu Klux Klan in southern Illinois during the 1920’s, I had an interest in these social issues.

I think having read this book when I was in 8th grade as well as other books on genocide, I was better equipped to have those difficult conversations as a teenager and to bridge cultural divides during high school and later in life. America is a melting pot, but it’s painful trying to blend in as a teenager and also pay the homage to ones heritage that parents expect at the same time. This is a universal immigrant teenager problem. I saw it a lot with Mexican-American students I coached as an adult. I saw it a lot when I was a teenager myself with many of my friends who were 1st & 2nd gen American.

If you are a student reading it now, try to appreciate that it’s not what you want it to be, but that is by design. It’s written from someone else’s cultural experience, not yours. If you’re bored, skip a few paragraphs or jump to the end. It’s also good exposure (a gateway drug to better books and serious topics for contemplation later). Don’t be ignorant. Your adult self will appreciate it. I definitely think the book made me kinder and more empathetic towards others for having read it even if I didn’t love it at the time.

Applications to real life? In grade school no one wanted to sit by a kid who recently immigrated to the US because they ate weird sandwiches that smelled funny (to this day I have no idea what; I don’t even remember where they were from; only that they were different and that was ‘weird’). By the time I was in high school though, I was really sensing a west-side story vibe between some slavic students and my American friends and tried to play peacemaker. Who planted that seed? Linda Crew et al.? Hm...

This book was an important read in that it opened doors to understanding complex cultural identities for immigrant teenagers. I was a basic suburban “popular chick” (team sports & vice president). I had immigrant friends in high school from very different social groups: “party friends” and “nerds”. For the former, my friends from Serbia and Albania had fast cars and crazy parties but deep down were mentally still processing shit from their homeland (like their Aunt finding their baby was boiled in a pot by soldier during the genocide—horrors that fortunately only come out after the party has gone home and your friend has had too much vodka). When we became friends I could appreciate their need to normalize their experiences and mentally shut down so they could “fit in” with other kids in our school; speak the language; party; survive the brutal teenage years—just like this book’s protagonist but in a less subdued way.

We can talk cliches all day but slowly my go-to-best-friend in high school became a quirky Pakistani-American who despite all cultural ‘ticks’ became a lifelong friend. My “popular friends” didn’t know we were besties until end of high school. Maybe I didn’t even realize we were best friends until then? 8,000 English papers later and complaining about books like this and poof! Did we just become best friend? Yup.

In hindsight, I was ridiculed by my more popular peers during senior year, just like the characters in this book (those dicks!). Some of my “judge-ey” friends thought we were dating and made fun of it (we weren’t and his parents would have killed him for dating a non-muslim white American chick. Naturally, he was secretly dating a Polish-immigrant-non-muslim student instead, using me as a red herring, but I digress.).

All that ridicule my senior year and you know what? I DIDN’T GIVE A FUCK. Just like Jonathan. I almost didn’t care if they thought we were dating. I tried to correct them once. After that I thought, “Maybe they SHOULD think we’re dating! Maybe jerks should just appreciate nerds win sometimes?”

I guess in the end, I learned the same lessons as the characters in this book: Having a friend with true moral fiber beats basic blond bitches. Every. Damn. Day. My immigrant friend was way cooler, ate awesome spicy food, has a better career now then all of them combined (he’s a doctor), AND has a hot-ass muslim wife that he travels with all the time (boom, arranged marriage success!). They are both insta-beautiful (not that it matters, but they are).

Last comment I’ll make: it’s really a book for pre-teens in that the romance volume is turned down low. The main characters are still getting aquatinted with those feelings so it’s a good soft introduction to the kinds of mixed up emotions we all have at that age. “What is love? Do I like them? Why do I feel this way? Why is my family so weird?” Pretty good tour of the same issues I’m sure we all revisit again and again as adults, but in a PG-rated preview. Hope that helps any parents or teachers on here.

[Katie 1😉 · Rating 2 out of 5]

I swear I only read this because I found it on my bookshelf after the move and had nothing else. The Cambodian inmigrant falling in love with the high school football star was entertaining, but seriously... That's what I get for reading young adult's novels.

[Damian · Rating 1 out of 5]

Started out as a good book, but the actual plot was too unoriginal and stale. Reading this for school was one of the most boring things I have done, and would have rather made a giant gash in my arm instead of reading this easy-to-predict book.

[Amanda · Rating 4 out of 5]

A lovely, sweet, short read.

"If you love someone, you better let them know while you can."

[Ellie Van · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the best romance books ever. Must read.

[A'Layah]

Children of The River by Lisa Crew is a story that highlights the importance of new beginnings. This narrative starts out in Cambodia, but eventually transitions into America during a war. Sundara, the main character, struggles as she tries to adapt to the new ways of American society. There is a lot of controversy between Sundara and her family when it comes to American traditions, especially the ones referring to boys. Sundaras journey throughout the book takes the reader through an emotional spiral.
One of the most targeted aspects of this book would be the differnece in Cambodian traditions and beliefs compared to the American traditions and beliefs. In Cambodia, a girl is to be wed off at a young age. Typically, the mother and father of both the girl and boy would find a respective partner for them. But in America, you are able to choose who you want your spouse to be. This quickly became a problem. Crew states in the book, “You should be grateful to me, niece.I’m going to findthe very best husband I can for you. Your’e a pretty girl. Nice and tall. We’re not going to give you to just anyone” (page 27). Throughout the book, you’d begin to notice that Sundara and her family do not go by their respective names. According to Crew, “Grandmother! Younger Aunt! Wake up!” (Crew 3). This quote from the book shows that Sundara’s family go by their respective place within the family. This could be out of respect or it could be a Cambodian tradition.
Once Sundara and her family make it to America, that's when Sundara soon feels that she doesn’t belong there. She would rather be with her mom, dad, and siblings. In America, they didn’t televise all of the terrible things that were happening around the world, including Cambodia. Sundara was slowly losing hope of ever coming back to her normal life in Cambodia. Subdara had attended her first class in America, where she was asked to write a poem:
… We are the children of the Mekong
Who will not see the mighty river…
The blood of our people
Has stained you
The bones of our people
Lie in unmarked graves…
We will not forget you
Even from this new place…
Not only does this story highlight the importance if immigration and new beginnings struggling with living in between her Cambodian culture and expectations, and American culture, we also see the years of writing and receiving letters from the Cambodians in a refugee camp. This highlights living and moving on through traumatic experiences, years of hope, and the years of going to school and experiencing hard labor. This was all a big change for Sundara.
Overall, I really enjoyed reading this book. The book isn’t tied into a sweet knot, like most books are. This book puts you through an emotional rollercoaster. And it really keeps you on your toes. Although, one dislike would be how the aunt is portrayed. It really got me thinking: “Can she be more understanding?”. In the end, I would give this book a 4 out of 5 stars. This is because I didn’t really like the choice of writing and some of the characters in the book.

[Rama · Rating 5 out of 5]

“Children of the River” by Linda Crew was a summer reading assignment I returned to almost a decade later. It is more poignant now, particularly the themes and Crew’s portrayal of the characters, considering the current polarized political climate and the interpretations of what it means to be American.

I understand Sundara’s struggles personally. I am a first generation American who grew up trying to balance the respect my family expected of me for my roots and the joys of participating in American customs that furthered my sense of independence. There is truth to the guilt of falling in love with someone outside of your parents hope for an arranged marriage, there is truth to the raw emotion of feeling burdened by what you know and understand about the deep-seated issues in your community, and trying to explain how certain ways of life like a man taking more than one wife or being born into a high-class doesn’t apply here.

I enjoyed the fact Crew explores these topics so honestly, something many communities including mine skim over to save face. Like Sundara and her family dynamic, mine has also changed to observe a more American lifestyle to the benefit of our whole family. Things like dating, getting a job as a woman, choosing to attend extra-curricular functions are things that my family never allowed - and now it’s so normalized I forget how difficult the transition was for my parents, especially.

I also support the concept of working hard in America to earn a living and support your family, succeeding despite difficulties. The plot avoids the whining of characters’ destitute, instead showing the wherewithal and responsibility shouldered by them despite to overcome their struggles. Moreover, the wisdom on life Crew offers, however fundamental, is important to return to. Conversations that involve the flow of life over a fork in the road or even the comments about identity between Cathy and Sundara.

While this book was not popular among my classmates back then, I hope that they can return to it and see what this piece of literature offers. It’s a quick weekend read that has a classic take on high school romance with a happy twist. While it seems unrealistic, I air on the side of hope and possibility over the pessimism of impossibility.

I learned about the war in Vietnam through the narration’s lens and I have a greater respect for the Vietnamese culture after being introduced to the customs and taking the opportunity to further research.

I throughly enjoyed the book’s tone and language, as reading it brought me back to my own school experience with its gentle, sentimental choice of words from the weather to classrooms to second loves. I have my own copy and will likely reread it soon!

[Preetam Chatterjee · Rating 5 out of 5]

A little trip down memory lane ………

It is 1975. Pol Pot's army, the Khmer Rouge, take control of Cambodia. Almost overnight, they attempt enforcing an extreme Maoist communist regime. They seek to replace all that went before. They restart the calendar, renaming 1975 Year Zero.

And boy, O boy, isn’t their regime a murderous one? In course of less than four years over 1 million Cambodians are killed and up to another 2 million perish from malnourishment or fatigue.

The Khmer Rouge methodically vacate the cities of people, forcing everyone to live off the land. Professionals, those who know a foreign language and, at one time, even those who wear glasses aere murdered.

Do you know French? German? Have you been learning Mandarin? And do you wear glasses? Be very frightened. If the hands of time were to be turned back and you a luckless Cambodian, you would’ve been in the other world right now.

And how was all this accomplished?

Much of this was done by brainwashing children and compelling them to censure and murder suspect adults. Family life was dispirited and curbed. Everyone was forced to live in communal work camps. At the age of 8, most children were sent away to live with other children under senior Khmer Rouge officials……..

All customary standards of veneration for elders were bottled-up and the ‘Comrade Child’ was praised as being ‘pure and unsullied by the immoral past of the adults’….

The account initiates as the Khmer Rouge takes power in Cambodia in 1975.

Sundara, at 13, flees with her aunt and uncle and their baby daughter to avert the horrors of the Communist regime. When their atrocious trip concludes, Sundara moves in with her aunt's family in Oregon, where she must overlap the gulf as a Cambodian and a representative 17-year-old American teen-ager.

Told in an invigorating third-person narrative, the book presents both a far-reaching summary and around-the-clock action at critical points, such as when Sundara and her family manage to escape from Cambodia.

An uncommon book about the refugee experience, this tome is timeless, almost.

How much time do you reckon a 220 odd page tome is needed to complete? A day? Less than that might be? But it took me a better part of 18 days to finish.

Had to revert back to history books for better referencing my study.

Most Recommended.

[MAdi L · Rating 4 out of 5]

The book I am reviewing is called Children of the River by Linda Crew. Sundara is a Cambodian girl, around the age of 17 for most of the book. When she was 13 years old she had to flee Cambodia with her aunt’s family to America from the Khmer Rouge, who were killing Cambodians, and leaving craters in the countryside. When she was in school, 4 years after she left Cambodia, a boy named Jonathan wanted to interview her on what Cambodia was like before, and after the war started. They both really liked each other, but Sundara kept telling him that Khmer girls do not go out with boys, especially American boys. Eventually though, she decided that she would not listen to her aunt, Soka, any more, she would go out sailing with Jonathan. All this time there was no word about her parents, or her little sister Mayoury. Before leaving Cambodia she was promised to a boy named Chamroun, but a few days after she went sailing with Jonathan she learned that he had died shortly after she left. When her other aunt Valinn came to America, Valinn told Sundara that her little sister Mayoury was alive! She ran to tell Jonathan, and in the end, she went out with Jonathan, without any guilt.

I think that when the author wrote that Chamroun was dead it really helped Sundara express her real feelings toward Jonathan. If Chamroun lived, and came to America she would never have gone with Jonathan. She felt guilty for almost a whole day because she thought Chamroun was dead because she let Jonathan take her sailing. But she soon realized that it was not her fault, he had died shortly after she left, which was a long time before she let Jonathan into her life.

I would recommend this book to people who really like reading about things that happen in other countries. Obviously this didn’t happen yesterday, but it is still something that might be going on in people around you, or in your community. The book was confusing at some points, but most of the time was understandable. It was easy to read, but not extremely easy, and it was nice and short. At some points it was very predictable, but there are many different surprises at different points that kept the book exciting to read. The ending was predictable but it was very fitting to the book. Overall I think it was a very good book.

[Arianna Bruneau · Rating 1 out of 5]

Short Version: This book needs an editor. There are spelling errors in almost every page, theres a couple of spots where an entire passage gets thrown into a random spot and then repeats itself. Not to mention how boring of a book this is. Time to go write my book report on it I guess.

Long Version (and I mean LONG): I did not like this book. I thought it was a bit boring, and it had far too many spelling and grammar errors. This book is in desperate need of an editor. I am honestly not sure how it got published without a good proofread. I can understand things like Johnathan’s name being spelled ‘Jonatan,’ because Sundara is unable to pronounce the “th.” I can also understand the subpar grammar in the dialogue, as English is not the family’s first language, though it is annoying how the words are in the wrong order and there are no plurals to be seen. The spelling errors were very prominent, and they appeared on almost every page. A few examples I found: “tigers’U”, “when he comes borne” when they meant ‘home.’ There were also multiple times where there was a random parenthese (yes, singular) or bracket at the end of a word. There was a whole passage in chapter 16 that is repeated, as if copied and pasted. The first time that showed up was at the very beginning of that chapter and I was very confused and thought I missed something, but went on. Then I read that same passage I just read, but later on in that chapter! Another reason I am not a fan of this book is because it throws Cambodian words in there with no context as to what it means, and yet Sundara calls her aunt “Younger Aunt” all the time, when clearly there is a Khmer word for it that they are just not using. Why not just use the Cambodian word for words like Younger Aunt, Niece, Elder Sister, Young One, and so on?? It is weird if you just call someone Younger Aunt, but if you say the word for it, it won’t be weird! Additionally, random words are italicized. I know the point of italics is to emphasize a word, but when I try to emphasize that word, it makes no sense.

[Amy de Raaf · Rating 4 out of 5]

At just 13 years of age, Sundara fled Cambodia with her aunt’s family, narrowly escaping the terror of the Khmer Rouge army. She left behind everything she knew—her parents, siblings, and even her childhood sweetheart—and began a new life in the United States. Four years later, Sundara struggles to balance her Cambodian roots with the expectations of life as a high schooler in Oregon. Her aunt insists she uphold traditional values, including waiting for an arranged marriage with a “good Cambodian boy.”

But then Sundara meets Jonathan, an American boy, and finds herself falling for him. Torn between her love for her heritage and her desire to embrace a new life, Sundara is caught in a difficult limbo, trying to reconcile her past with her present.

This is such a powerful coming-of-age story about identity, belonging, and self-discovery. Sundara’s journey is heartbreaking—what she endured just to survive, and then to simply be a teenager, is unimaginable. The historical elements about the Khmer Rouge were very enlightening. Love books like this one!

This was another educational and emotional read, perfect for younger audiences. Loved learning about the Camobian culture and their history. I read this one with my two sons, and we all loved it. It inspired great conversations!

[AZ · Rating 3 out of 5]

When people think of the Vietnam War, they always imagine U.S soldiers getting marched off, bombs falling from the sky, and dead bodies littering the battlefields. Nobody really stops to consider the Vietnamese and Cambodian (the war wasn't solely concentrated to Vietnam) citizens, those who fled their home to brave the dangers of moving to a new country where they would have to start a new life completely from scratch. People only think of the bloody battles and whatever they're being shown, never really considering what happens to the ordinary citizens who just so happened to be caught in the crossfire. As long as they themselves aren't in danger, people will just say things like "Oh, that's too bad" or "It's really unfortunate" before going on with their day and shoving those thoughts of misfortune to the back of their minds. Two characters from the book, Jonathan and Jonathan's father, are both quite like that. Jonathan, because he never really considered the fact that there would be refugees coming from the war to the U.S, and Jonathan's father, because when he was in a position to help tend to refugees in the refugee camps, it took his son shouting at him that he was useless before he actually decided to go.