Sky of Bombs, Sky of Stars: A Vietnamese War Orphan Finds Home

Tuyet remembers little about life before the Saigon orphanage, before polio left her limping and in constant pain, before the war made it too dangerous to stand under the bomb-filled Vietnam sky. Unable to play with the other children and knowing that at eight she is too old be adopted, she helps care for the babies in the orphanage. So when frantic aid-workers load a van full of babies and take Tuyet as well, she thinks that’s why she is there: as a carer. She can’t guess that, with the capital about to fall to the North Vietnamese, she is being evacuated on the last airplane full of at-risk children bound for new adoptive homes in the west.

Before she knows what is happening, Tuyet is whisked into life with the Morris family: Mom, Dad, their biological daughter Beth, and their adopted children Lara and Aaron. It takes some time to really understand that she isn’t there to help care for baby Aaron: she is there to be their daughter. She learns that the bright sparks in the sky are stars, not bombs, that flames on a birthday cake are nothing to fear, and that her only jobs are to play and to be loved. But a bigger test stands before Tuyet: corrective surgery for her twisted ankle, and a gruelling physiotherapy regimen. Unable to speak English yet and terrified that the procedure will fail, Tuyet must draw on every ounce of courage and focus on her dream of running and kicking a ball in a pair of matching shoes.

Sky of Bombs, Sky of Stars: A Vietnamese War Orphan Finds Home is an omnibus edition of the award-winning Last Airlift: A Vietnamese Orphan’s Rescue from War and One Step at a Time: A Vietnamese Child Finds Her Way. Retold by acclaimed children’s author Marsha Forchuk Skrypuch, Tuyet’s dramatic true story is based on personal interviews and enhanced with archival photos.