Free eBooks Lucky Child: A Daughter Of Cambodia Reunites With The Sister She Left Behind (P.S.) Available To Downloads
After enduring years of hunger, deprivation, and devastating loss at the hands of the Khmer Rouge, ten-year-old Loung Ung became the "lucky child," the sibling chosen to accompany her eldest brother to America while her one surviving sister and two brothers remained behind. In this poignant and elegiac memoir, Loung recalls her assimilation into an unfamiliar new culture while struggling to overcome dogged memories of violence and the deep scars of war. In alternating chapters, she gives voice to Chou, the beloved older sister whose life in war-torn Cambodia so easily could have been hers. Highlighting the harsh realities of chance and circumstance in times of war as well as in times of peace, Lucky Child is ultimately a testament to the resilience of the human spirit and to the salvaging strength of family bonds.
Series: P.S.
Paperback: 268 pages
Publisher: Harper Perennial; Reprint edition (April 11, 2006)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0060733950
ISBN-13: 978-0060733957
Product Dimensions: 5.3 x 0.7 x 8 inches
Shipping Weight: 14.9 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars See all reviews (64 customer reviews)
Best Sellers Rank: #236,150 in Books (See Top 100 in Books) #92 in Books > Parenting & Relationships > Family Relationships > Siblings #127 in Books > Politics & Social Sciences > Social Sciences > Specific Demographics > Asian American Studies #291 in Books > Biographies & Memoirs > Historical > Asia
Ms. Ung has once again given us a powerful rendering of what it means to survive. Her first book, First They Killed My Father" was extraordinary for its ability to translate the experience of the Cambodian genocide for a public disconnected to the realities of that war.Her second book is no less a tour de force, giving us an eye into the life of a young girl from a radically different culture (and history of deprevation) trying to come to terms with this American life. She does it remarkably well, with candor and grace.
As I read 'Lucky Girl,' I was amazed that Loung Ung had the courage to write such an honest account of her feelings and experiences following her arrival in the USA. She paints a portrait of herself with shadings of the human faults and frailties that we all carry within us. But would we have the courage to pen the less admirable aspects of ourselves for all the world to know?Several years ago I traveled to Phnom Penh. Reading Ms Ung's first book after the visit, I was haunted with vivid pictures of the Ung's family living such a comfortable life in the city and then being plunged into the darkness of genocide. I recalled thinking that the streets I wandered, the movie theater, the markets were places that, in my mind, had strangely witnessed the Ung's family pleasures and then the insanity of the Khmer brutality.In 'Lucky Child' Loung Ung reminds us that although we might consider this unspeakable chapter of human history as 'over,' her family and thousands of other rural Cambodians live with the fear of landmines and the reality of vestiges of the Khmer threat every day.Should you want to learn about these courageous people in the context of someone to be admired for amazing candor, read 'Lucky Child.'
Last year, I picked up First They Killed My Father while I was in Cambodia. I had already read Chanrithy Him's - When Broken Glass Floats. Both of these books are very powerful and must reads in the genre of the Khmer Rouge and the Cambodian genocide of 1975-1979. Lucky Child is a book that takes place in a completely different world. At the end of "First They", we see Loung heading for a new life in America and we all give a sigh of relief.Lucky Child goes in depth into the difficulties of a minority trying to adapt to white American society. All the while, Loung has everything she experienced in Cambodia continually gnawing at her spirit - the loss of her family being the most difficult for her. As the author, she is our focus, but in Lucky Child, we also get a very good look at her older sister Chou and what life was like in Cambodia in the years following the fall of the Khmer Rouge.This book is powerful and tough to put down. It tugs at the heartstrings and provokes deeper thought into our own lives and values. Lucky Child is one of the finer books that I have read in some time and I highly reccomend it to anyone who is interested in Cambodia, the peoples, customs and landscapes of that beautiful country, and human nature, suffering, and the will to succeed. This is a book not to be missed!
I enjoyed this book very much. I heard an interview with the author on our local NPR radio station and bought the book the next day. The discriptions of her feelings and the contrasts between her life in Vermont and her sisters in Cambodia were moving and very artfully done. This is a must read for all of us who sometimes take for granite the freedoms we enjoy and a true picture of courage and faith.
I loved the first book of the trilogy "First They Killed My Father". And I recently finished reading this one. I love this one for different reasons. It tells of the aftermath of the War in Cambodia. Some might think if you were a refugee from Cambodia who made their way to the United States in the war's aftermath that everything would just turn out fine and dandy. And indeed in many ways it eventually did as Luong was able to start a new life with a "higher standard of living" than she likely would have had in Cambodia had she stayed there. And she does eventually reconnect with her sister Chou and many in the rest of her family as well in Cambodia. She finds her purpose in life and as a result does some good things in helping her deal with the war's pain.But before reconnecting with her family and finding her purpose she deals with the guilt and trauma associated with PTSD survivors as well as the culture shock she encounters trying to fit in to her new country, the United States. An easy to read book coming from a woman who's native language is not English. Impressive. I'd recommend this book to anyone wanting a glimpse of what it can be like for a refugee to adjust to life in the U.S.
What a great book and sequel to First They Killed My Father. As a sister to three young children adopted from Cambodia, this book gave great insight as to what their birth families went through under Pol Pot and why they would have given these children up for adoption. This book helps the reader understand that even after the refugees found their way out of Cambodia and the citizens remaining found a new life, the horrors of this war were still with them. A very touching book.
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