Here’s the article.

And here’s what they say about Last Airlift:

As Saigon was falling to the North Vietnamese in April 1975, those who were caring for babies and children orphaned by the war worried about the fate of their charges. A series of evacuation flights called “Operation Babylift” carried several thousand young children to other countries around the world. Skrypuch tells the story of the last Canadian airlift through the memories of one child, Son Thi Anh Tuyet. Nearly 8 years old, the sad-eyed girl on the cover had lived nearly all her life in a Catholic orphanage. With no warning, she and a number of the institution babies were taken away, placed on an airplane and flown to a new world. Tuyet’s memories provide poignant, specific details. The nuns expected her to be useful; she helped with the babies. Naturally, she assumed that John and Dorothy Morris had chosen her to help with their three children; instead, she had acquired a family. Tuyet’s experience is the author’s focus. It personalizes the babylift without sensationalizing it. Immediate and compelling, this moving refugee story deserves a wide audience. (Nonfiction. 10-15)

This is an interesting academic article on my three Armenian Genocide novels, The Hunger, Nobody’s Child, and Daughter of War.

The Manitoba Young Readers Choice Award (M.Y.R.C.A.) aims to promote reading and Canadian literature by giving young people the opportunity to vote for their favorite Canadian book from an annual preselected list. The books are nominated based on their quality and reader appeal.

Congratulations to the MYRCA 2012 winner, Dear George Clooney, Please Marry My Mom by Susin Nielsen!

We would also like to congratulate the authors of the MYRCA 2012 Honor Books: Half Brother by Kenneth Oppel, and Stolen Child by Marsha F. Skrypuch.

The Canadian Children’s Book Centre is holding its Annual General Meeting, featuring special guest speaker Marsha Skrypuch, on Tuesday, June 19, 2012 at 6:00 p.m.

Location:
Room 200, Northern District Library
40 Orchard View Blvd.
(Yonge & Eglinton)
Toronto, Ontario M4R 1B9

Reception to follow at the Canadian Children’s Book Centre
Suites 217 & 222, Northern District Library

Please RSVP by June 12 to Shannon Howe Barnes at 416.975.0010 ext. 227 or rsvp@bookcentre.ca.

To view the formal invitation, go here.

Last Airlift: A Vietnamese Orphan’s Rescue from War
written by Marsha Forchuk Skrypuch
Pajama Press, 2011
9978-0-9869495-4-8 (hc) $17.95
978-0-9869495-1-7 (pb) $12.95
for Grades 4 and up

Non-fiction / Vietnam 1975 / Operation “Babylift” History / Orphans / Adoption / Disability / Courage

Thought-provoking, heartrending and inspirational, author Marsha Forchuk Skrypuch’s first non-fiction book chronicles one woman’s account of a little-known piece of Canadian history: the Ontario government-sponsored Operation “Babylift.”

In April 1975, South Vietnamese orphans were airlifted from Saigon and flown to Ontario where they were adopted by Canadian families. This military maneuver saved interracial babies (with American blood) and disabled children from being killed by the Viet Cong. Written from the perspective of eight-year-old Tuyet, who is crippled from polio, the book gives the reader vivid insight into life in a Saigon orphanage where children never see the sky and subsist amidst a soundtrack of warfare. Tuyet’s story reveals not only the privations and misplacement caused by war but the assumptions made by well-meaning people about the desirability of Western customs and middle-class values. Plentiful food, her own room and her first family initially cause Tuyet mistrust, discomfort and even terror.

This simply written but masterfully perceptive story of human resilience and courage belongs on every school and public library shelf. Although it could be read aloud to Grade 3 students and independently by Grades 4 to 8 students (e.g., for social studies or language units), the narrative easily captures an adult. Forchuk Skrypuch, who has received numerous awards for her historical novels, enriches this slender book with photos and official documents. Historical and author’s notes, detailing relevant background to Tuyet’s plight and the author’s research methods, make engaging additions alongside a list of further resources and an index.

Aliki Tryphonopoulos