My sister finished her final project for her Reading Specialist Certification from the University of Virginia. She chose to create a teacher’s guide for Thanhha Lai’s powerful prose-poetry book, Inside Out and Back Again, (a semi-autobiographical book about Lai’s experience as a refugee from Vietnam in the 1970’s). I just ordered it! In the author’s note to the reader, Lai writes this:
I also hope after you finish this book that you sit close to someone you love and implore that person to tell and tell and tell their story.
I think again about how loving and important it is to sit down with others and let them tell and tell and tell their story. What a gift!
I think more about sharing stories in community as a vital activity. I want you to tell and tell and tell!