Vietnam, the Culture

Patricia Morley is professor emerita of English and Canadian studies at
Concordia University, and the author of Kurlek, Margaret Laurence: The
Long Journey Home, and As Though Life Mattered: Leo Kennedy’s Story.

Vietnam is a vibrant nation, despite millennia of wars and rumors of
war. To most North Americans, it is an unknown land that suffered a
merciless civil war in the 1960s and 1970s with the intervention of the
United States on the side of the anti-communist South.

Bobbie Kalman, who created the Lands, Peoples, and Cultures series, set
out to turn a name into flesh-and-blood reality. A crisp and relatively
brief text aimed at primary- and middle-school children is placed, in
blocks, beside excellent color photographs (one or two per page). Each
book includes a glossary and an index.

Vietnam: The Land chronicles the diversity of this long, narrow
Southeast Asian country of some 75 million people. It covers different
climates, wildlife, recent wars, city life, farming and fishing,
transportation, and (very briefly) the rebuilding that has taken place
over the last 20 years in a climate of change.

Vietnam: The People looks at the ethnic Vietnamese (who compose more
than 85 percent of the population), along with the minorities who have
struggled to keep alive their own languages and traditions. Family life
is strong, and the extended family is still important in Vietnamese
life, where family members share failures and successes and siblings
help their younger brothers and sisters. Farming is still done largely
by hand, and seven out of ten people are farmers.

A sense of the people is evoked even more vividly in Vietnam: The
Culture. Striking photographs depict musical instruments, puppet shows,
other arts and crafts, architecture, festivals, and food. There are even
a few recipes.

This ambitious series successfully tackles a vast topic in a relatively
short space. Fine photos and a well-organized text bring this small,
ancient nation into focus for older children. Highly recommended.