Stealing Buddha's Dinner

Stealing Buddha’s Dinner – Bich Minh Nguyen

I found this book through my fellow book blogging buddy Lesley, once again she found a winner!

I wish I’d know Bich during the 80s.  We could have been good friends!  Like me Bich arrived in the US as an infant in 1975.  Unlike me, she arrived here by way of Vietnam when she and her family fled just before the fall of Saigon. 

So many things about this book appealed to me.  One was reading about how Bich learned English and how she attempted to assimilate herself with American children in Grand Rapids Michigan in the 80s when there was no real diversity. 

It made me think of a student I have in my class who just moved here from China and doesn’t speak or understand any English! Made me wonder if her experience is anything like Bich’s? 

I also enjoyed the trip back through the 80s! Bich had me singing along to songs from the 80s and reminiscing about TV shows, foods and toys that were all apart of pop culture at the time! 

My favorite part of the book had to have been when she was telling us about her love of Beverly Cleary’s Ramona books and Laura Ingalls Wilder’s Little House on the Prairie books.   Both of those series were my absolute favorites when I was a kid.  I’d read them all multiple times.  Laura and Ramona were my two childhood heroes.  They were also Bich’s heroes.