No one would believe me but at times I would choose wartime in Saigon over peacetime in Alabama. For all the ten years of her life,H├Ç has only known Saigon: the thrills of its marketsthe joy of its traditionsthe warmth of her friends close by . . . and the beauty of her very own papaya tree. But now the Vietnam War has reached her home. H├Ç and her family are forced to flee as Saigon fallsand they board a ship headed toward hope. In AmericaH├Ç discovers the foreign world of Alabama: the coldness of its strangersthe dullness of its foodthe strange shape of its landscape . . . and the strength of her very own family. This is the moving story of one girl’s year of changedreamsgriefand healing as she journeys from one country to anotherone life to the next.