Little Brother

by Allan Baillie

In Cambodia after the Vietnamese War, Vithy learns to overcome social upheaval, a hostile jungle, and his own inability to trust, in order to rescue his older brother

Genres: Fiction, Historical Fiction, Asia, War, Young Adult, Middle Grade, Childrens

144 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1985

About the author

Allan Baillie was born in Scotland but has lived most of his life in Australia, where he attended several Victorian bush schools and eventually settled in Melbourne. He has worked as a journalist and published books in fourteen countries.

Reviews

[Michelle · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a lovely book to introduce the idea of war and refugees to a younger audience. It lacks the horrifying details that would be too much for most children but instead tells the inspiring story of a young Cambodian boy searching for his brother. While not a 'true story' the author says it is 70% true based on a collection of stories he discovered when travelling through Cambodia many years ago, before the war. it is well written and fast paced. The main character, Vithy, is a kind, generous, resourceful and very likable young man. I can't wait to see what my class think of this book!

[Rebsbails · Rating 5 out of 5]

Good for the demographic. I still remember reading it as a child 30 years on.

[Allie:) · Rating 5 out of 5]

great book

[Bailey · Rating 4 out of 5]

‘Little Brother is a novel by Allan Baillie about a boy named Vithy. Vithy is caught up in the middle of the Cambodian War and finds himself lost without his big brother Mang, whom he relies on for a lot. The intended audience could be 10-12 year-olds who want to learn about the war, but it doesn’t give all the gory descriptions most books about war would have.

One positive of the book is the storyline. It explains all the details, so you mostly all the time understand all of the details. Little Brother includes the history of the Cambodian War over the whole novel. The tiny details all add up to show exactly what happened without being cloudy or unclear about what did happen.

Another good thing in the book is the characters. All of the characters have their personalities and roles in the story. I can’t say too much more without spoiling it although it is good in the way that everyone has there a reason for being there and how they help the story flow.

A negative to the book is that sometimes it gives you all the details at once, and that can get difficult to understand at times. Everything is just thrown in your face. It sometimes gets overwhelming, but this being said reading over it again can help a lot.

One more negative is the ending. Everything seems to happen at once, without a lot of explanation or reason. All of a sudden two of the characters are in Australia, the other side of the world to Cambodia. The reasons for this are explained earlier but it doesn’t tell you when it happens, it just does. And at times this is confusing and disorientating with the flow of the book

All in all Little Brother is a good read, that helps peoples understanding of the Cambodian War.

[James.C · Rating 1 out of 5]

Key themes
The book Little Brother is about a boy called Vithy escaping from a Cambodian civil war. While he is trying to escape he wants to find his brother. I think the book is intended for 11+ because anyone younger wold get scared because of what it contains.
One of the good things in the book is the fact that it could help you in later life for example maturity and independence.
Another good reason is that it can teach you about the sadness of life.

Negative
I strongly disagree with this book because I don’t see how the big brother (Mang) survived bullets in a war.
This book wouldn’t follow the nature of war because what is the chance that you can find people that survived the war to help you
In conclusion, the book is good to a certain extent.

[Jayden M. · Rating 4 out of 5]

Allan Baillie is the talented author of the novel ‘Little Brother’. He has intended for this novel to be for the younger kids for 12+ and has made the novel age-appropriate for the younger audience. The novel helps get the ideas of hardship and positives of war to some of the younger audience. The novel ‘Little Brother’ is about a young Cambodian boy who has almost lost all of his family to war other than his brother Mang. He is trying to make his way to the border out of one of the Pattys built by the Khmer Rouge.

When reading this novel you will see that most of the events are tragic, but there are small glimpses of hope as Vithy is finding his way through the Cambodian landscapes to try to reunite with his big brother Mang. The young boy called Vithy has faced many hardships but has gained independence and maturity from this tragic event.

In the novel, we do see the hardships of the Cambodian war from the perspective of an 11-year-old boy called Vithy. Vithy has been faced with the challenge of making his way to the Thai border to try to reunite with Mang but has been pushed to his limits along the way. Though in the novel we do see some positives the negatives far outweigh these.

The novel ‘Little Brother’ written by Allan Baille we do see the hardships of war but we also see small glimpses hope as Vithy is making his way through the Cambodian landscape discovering new landmarks and gaining independence and maturity through his tragic event.

[Samuel.F · Rating 5 out of 5]

Introduction: The main themes of Little Brother are death, hope, courage, inspiration. The Audience of this book should be late primary - early high-school. The story starts off with a very unlucky boy looking for his older brother. Along the way he meets new people and gets close to being killed numerous times, Vithy describes the average 11-year-old boy looking for protection.




Positives: The story really tells us about the most extreme ups and downs of life also containing lots of joy and factual evidence. I would personally read this book once more because if you read this book too many times it makes war seem less excruciating than it is meant to be. I could most definitely relate to this boy when I was 11 years old.



Negatives: I personally believe that it is really piled up with things kids even 13 years old shouldn’t even be worrying about. If my grandma or grandpa read this story they would be balling in tears because it brings back so many memories even for someone that wasn’t even in that war. Very emotional story.



Conclusion In Conclusion Allan Baillie really bleeds out the effects war has on everyone in the family tree. No one would be able to survive for this amount of pressure apart from someone who lives war every day. Great story Allan Baillie.

[Bri U · Rating 2 out of 5]

Allan Baillie The writer of ‘Little Brother’ tells a significant story about a little boy vithy who loses his brother and finds himself living on the edge of fear, trauma, discouragement and death. Vithys brother Mang has left to go to the border and wants Vithy to meet him there. He stumbles along the way and he loses everything. However, he gains confidence. Vithy came to realise that he is more than just Mangs little brother, he can do things to like make a bike or comfort those in need and help others through their times of distress.

The book is hard to relate to because we don’t all go through war but we lose faith in ourselves and think of ourselves as useless but eventually we get right back up again better than ever. This is easy to relate to in the book. Little Brother is also relatable through the love of Mang he lived every day of hell just to see his brothers face again. He loved him unconditionally.

The book is difficult because of the reality and intensity of it. Vithy had to go through what no 11 year old could possibly imagine. We got to imagine how Vithy felt watching his family die more and more as each day went on until he had nothing left except for mang.

‘Little Brother’ is not my favourite book however, I would recommend the book ‘Little Brother’ to kids' age 12+.

[Jonathan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Little Brother is a great book for 5th graders and up who like to read a fictional story who is based off a real event that happened in the world. In the book Little Brother, there is a boy named Vithy who has escaped from the clutches of Khmer Rouge but must escape the country and go to the border to be full free from their control. Throughout the story he sees and experiences what war can do to a person. As well as escaping from the Khmer Rouge he is also trying to find his only family member left which is his brother Mang.
The two things I liked about the book is the effective techniques that Allan Bailie uses throughout the story to tell the experiences that Vithy has, also I like that Allan Bailie had made Vithy into a person who has to live through the hardships that come to him to make it as realistic as possible for a person in a war.
Two things I didn't like was that it was based on a true war that happened in Cambodia and that millions of people had died from the cruelty of the war. Another sad thing that I don't like about the book is that Vithy was based off a real person and that he is still in the Camp hospital in Khao I Dang and that is a sad reality for that person.
That is why the book Little Brother is a great book for those who like fiction that is based on a real event and a real person and it is a great book review for 5th graders and up.

[Isabella · Rating 2 out of 5]

Allan Baillie the author of little brother has done an excellent job of writing a novel on the Cambodian genocide. In the book, little brother the main character vithy was with his brother mang and then he wasn’t they were separated because of war. I think is okay I got really sad when I would recommend it for +12 yrs because it is still violent but not as violent as I would be if it had every detail of the war.

The characters and the way that they were portrayed were good because the younger brother was separated and scared and further through the book he wasn’t scared any more even without his brother there to help him.

A negative of this book is that the brothers were separated for a long time and had to go through traumatic experiences by themselves. Another negative is that lots of people get injured or killed. It is sad for family and friends. The book is hard for me to relate to as well

Allan Baillie’s novel little brother is okay it has some positives. But it is not my favourite book and will probably never be.

[Alyssa.A · Rating 4 out of 5]

The novel Little Brother by Allan Ballie is a good book in my opinion. It has great insight into what war would be like but without the gruesome parts, it would be perfect for early teens.
I really enjoyed the plot of the novel, it made you feel that these things could happen to someone, it was really engaging because of that. I think that some parts would be relatable for people who were in that war, like having to run, seeing your family get taken away/killed, it felt like this because Allan Ballie went tp Cambodia to hear stories it had a lot of research put to it.
But like every book it has its downfall, it was difficult to stay interested and it got you not really enjoying the book. It was challenging to believe that everything that happened to Vithy could happen to a real-life boy because it couldn't, he states in the last section that these are just a bunch of different peoples stories and some parts are made up.
In summary, Little Brother is a book worth reading but no more than once.

[Caitlin.G · Rating 3 out of 5]

The ‘Little Brother’ novel was written by Allan Baillie and is intended for an audience of 11-14. The novel is about a young boy named Vithy who makes his way from a place they call the big patty to the Thailand border in search of his brother. Vithy experiences all of the traumas of war in this novel showing the young readers what it is like to be stuck in a war in a non-harmful way. The novel ‘Little Brother’ is relatable and engaging even though we might be in a different situation especially given Vithy is a similar age to the intended audience. ‘Little Brother’ is a good book because you get to experience the world through Vithys eyes. Though there are also some negative things about the novel ‘Little Brother’ is that it is very repetitive. Another negative thing about the novel is that it is very similar to a book that already exists that when I first read it I thought that it was the same story just in a different plot setting. In conclusion ‘Little Brother by Allan Baillie is an easy read for younger ages and is a good book to read at school.

[Kai.N · Rating 4 out of 5]

The book Little Brother by Allan Baillie describes the negative and positive effects of war. The main characters in this book are Vithy, Mang, Sorei and Doctor Betty. The book is about a little boy being separated from his family by the Khmer Rogue and he has to go through a lot of challenges to find them. This book is good at describing the horrible effects of losing a loved one and good at not giving up on something that you really want to happen. I think this book is for ages 12+ because it has some parts that have some inappropriate words for younger aged people. Some bad things to the book are maybe the wording of the Novel because I don’t think the wording is at its best, plus the book does describe a lot of things about death and war so it is not very suitable for younger people in my opinion. In conclusion, the book is very good for a one-day reading book for travelling or a day off but I would not read it again in my view.

[CoraM · Rating 3 out of 5]

The fear that this little boy probably experienced when trying to escape the Cambodian civil war as well as trying to find his lost brother is unthinkable. The novel Little Brother is intended for people who are in early high school because it gives children who have not experienced war a good idea of the positives and negatives of war without going into a great amount of detail.

Little Brother gives the reader a positive insight into the Cambodian civil and how refugees would feel in a time like this. I loved the way Allan Baillie made the characters in Little Brother easy to relate.

Whilst reading Allan Baillie novel Little Brother I did find some parts of the book confusing particulaly saying I don't know much about war. Another negative of the book is all the violence in the book and that is why I say that the Novel Little Brother By Allan Baillie is suitable For early high schoolers.

In conclusion, this was a great read but I would not read it more than once.

[Likechell · Rating 2 out of 5]

‘Little Brother’

Allan Baillie’s novel ‘Little Brother’ is intended for ages 13 years of age and up. It helps describe the hardships and good things about war. ‘Little brother’ is about a child named Vithy who is caught up in the middle of the war between the Khmer Rouge and the Vietnamese.

One positive of reading this book is that this book helps us understand war and what Vithy is feeling and going through and may help you if you get caught in a war. Another positive is that it is based on a true story and to me, nothing is better than the truth.

One negative of this book is that it is challenging to read and might make you feel bad about the main character. Another negative is that some of the words are difficult to read and you may not understand it.

In my eyes, ‘Little Brother’ is a great book and is a must-read for all people over the age of 13!

[Josh.E · Rating 4 out of 5]

Little Brother was a very enjoyable book. I would encourage everyone to read this book. I would mainly suggest it to High School students. Little Brother is a book about a boy called Vithy running from the Khmer Rouge soldiers and he is in search for his brother Mang. Along the way, he makes friends, like Dr Betty Harris, The King, The Youth and Frank. And also matures in the sense that he is less prone to reacting a less mature way.

I could relate to this book because it was about a boy concealing things about himself such as Mental hurt, Physical pain etc. Vithy has experienced a lot and one of which is a slight bit of PTSD as found in the chapter The Bus. I found some of the parts in the book a bit difficult to understand because it does not give enough context.

In conclusion, Little Brother gives us the First-Person view into the eyes of somebody that has experienced war.

[Eva B · Rating 3 out of 5]

I think the novel ‘Little Brother’ by Allan Baillie was quite a good read. I believe a good audience for this book would be upper primary school and lower high school. It is about a young Khmer boy named Vithy who is trying to escape the genocide by Pol Pot and the Cambodian War. He loses his brother and goes for a journey around Cambodia to find him and along the way finds newfound courage and friends.
It was very thrilling and electrifying as he was going around Cambodia at the time of war trying to find his brother. There were blood, sweat and tears. He doesn’t want anyone to stop him and Vithy is very dedicated to find him.
On the other hand, it is not a very good book to read over and over and over a million times because you lose the sense of surprise and you aren’t as thrilled. Overall it was a good book for educational purposes or if you want just a book about war.

[Bronte.W · Rating 4 out of 5]

The ‘Little Brother’ novel by Allan Baillie, is an amazing book and I find it very simple to put yourself in Vithy’s shoes and experience what he did in search of his brother. The intended age I think is 11-14 years depending on the maturity and interests of the person. It shows a very engaging description of the Cambodian war and the Khmer Rouge’s actions, it would be a good novel to educate younger children about genocide and execution. On the less bright side, it is not a great book to read over and over because it is a very memorable storyline (which I suppose is good), it could use more description and emphasis. Overall it was a great book to read, a little bit boring so I wouldn’t read it again but good for educational purposes.

[Sam · Rating 4 out of 5]

In the novel little brother it has a lot of positives and negatives. The story was about a little boy called Vithy who was trying to escape the Cambodian war. Vithy was about 11 years old when the war started and his family got taken away and some of them got killed by the Khmer rouge.

In the novel, it was very engaging and entertaining and you just wanted to keep on reading. The novel also had a lot of suspense when Vithy was alone without his family.

The book had its ups and downs when it got sad when vithy kep on having memories about his family. It's also sad when vithy hears a bullet shot and he doesn't know where mang is so he thought mang got shot.

I thought that Little brother by Allan baile is definitely worth reading for ages 12+.

[Henri R · Rating 3 out of 5]

I really enjoyed Little Brother, it was about a boy who has to reach the border during the Cambodian civil war all by himself because his older brother was shot by the Khmer Rouge. I think it would be aimed at kids aged 12+.
I think this book is very engaging because of the great storyline and suspenseful moments, you just can’t put it down. It's also a good book because Allan Baillie has described things well so I can picture the story in my mind as I read it.
The things I didn’t like is that in some of the parts it's hard to tell whats going on. In also in some parts, it can be quite sad and violent because of the fighting and death.

In conclusion, this book is a good adventure book set in the Cambodian civil war about a boy called Vithy. I definitely recommend this book.

[Tomeika · Rating 3 out of 5]

Allan Baillie is the author of this novel Little Brother, the intended audience is around yr 6 and high school students. Vithy the main character in the book had nobody, no family no one but himself. He was determined and spent the whole book in the horrible experiences of war just trying to find his older brother, Mang.

Two positive things in the book are; how Vithy gets away from the war at the end and how Vithy meets many friends along the way. Two negative ideas to this book are; that Vithy had to go through the terrible times of war and that he had nobody.

This book isn’t the type of book I normally read but I quite liked the novel as there are some interesting and enjoyable parts in the book for me.

[Maka · Rating 1 out of 5]

Allan Baillie's novel “Little Brother” is about a boy who is trying to escape the Cambodian genocide and his fight to survive and find his brother. This book is a great way to introduce 10+ kids to war and refugees and to what goes on in a war. This book has some positives like the way it goes into detail about the war but not enough to freak out kids and this novel is quite relatable to the characters featured in the book. But also has some negatives like after chapter 10 I got a bit tired of it and it was like a chore to read it. I wouldn’t recommend this book because it's quite boring and it drags on a little.

[Kieran George · Rating 1 out of 5]

Little Brother Book Review

Rating: 1.9/10
Age: 12-13

Little Brother by Allan Baillie is a book about a boy who lost everything in the Cambodian Genocide. Little Brother doesn't catch my attention because of how unrealistic and boring some of the chapters are. The book is not the most intriguing book you can find though it still has some good traits like how war can both positively and negatively shape a person and how It demonstrates what happened in the war and what it is like to lose everything you have ever held dear. In conclusion, the book Little Brother is not the best type of book but it still has some positive outcomes of reading it.

[Summerw · Rating 2 out of 5]

The novel Little Brother by Allan Baillie was an interesting book based on life during the Khmer Rouge war in Cambodia. The book is aimed at ages 12+ and is an engaging book educating those about the war and the impacts that it has. However, it is a tough book to wrap your head around and understand due to its complicated adventures that the characters face. Allan Baillie’s Novel, Little Brother is a good book that educates people about the Khmer Rouge and the Cambodian war and gives the reader a sense of what the war was like.

[AJ · Rating 4 out of 5]

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
A short book written for teens set in the beautiful country of Cambodia. The story is full of the resilience of children, people and a nation and I loved the descriptions of the enduring Phnom Penh, Ankor Wat and the jungle. I have travelled to Cambodia many times and loved returning there through this book.

[Patrick · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is informative and gives us some insight into what happened in Cambodia's history. I liked how during the protagonist's adventure to find his lost brother there are people that help him on his journey. I also liked that no matter how hard the circumstances were he continued to looks for his brother no matter how long it would take.

[Scarlet · Rating 5 out of 5]

Loved this book. It was heartbreaking and wholesome all at once.

[Ms Harrison · Rating 4 out of 5]

A really well-crafted story about the plight of young people living in a war-torn world. The connections to real events make the story even more compelling.

[hilary ೀ⋆ · Rating 1 out of 5]

eh, kinda boring :/

[Bodhidasa · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a powerful and slightly surreal exploration of life under the Khmer Rouge through the eyes of a young man.