{"id":22197,"date":"2013-11-25T15:02:40","date_gmt":"2013-11-25T20:02:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/bookdragon.si.edu\/?p=22197"},"modified":"2015-08-10T20:34:06","modified_gmt":"2015-08-11T00:34:06","slug":"one-step-at-a-time-a-vietnamese-child-finds-her-way-by-marsha-forchuk-skrypuch","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/one-step-at-a-time-a-vietnamese-child-finds-her-way-by-marsha-forchuk-skrypuch\/","title":{"rendered":"One Step at a Time : A Vietnamese Child Finds Her Way by Marsha Forchuk Skrypuch"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"One<\/a>Introduced to U.S. readers by award-winning Canadian author\u00a0Marsha Forchuk Skrypuch<\/a>\u00a0in\u00a0last year’s\u00a0Last Airlift: A Vietnamese Orphan\u2019s Rescue from War<\/a>,<\/em>\u00a0Son Thi Ahn Tuyet’s\u00a0story continues\u00a0\u2013 literally one step at a time. Now that Tuyet has a real home with her own real family\u00a0\u2013 Dad, Mom, sisters Beth and Lara, and baby brother Aaron\u00a0\u2013 she’s learning to finally feel safe. Nighttime still remains a bit scary when memories of war and tragedy return to haunt her dreams; no matter how nice her own room is, for now, Tuyet prefers to sleep safely “burrowed into her nest of pillows and covers on the throw rug between Beth and Lara’s beds.”<\/p>\n

In addition to adapting to her new family and struggling to understand a culture so different from the one she left in a language she hasn’t yet learned, Tuyet prepares for some of the greatest physical challenges of her young life. The beautiful new red shoe and soft red slipper Mom bought for her polio-damaged feet and legs have already filled Tuyet’s heart with joyful smiles. Now Tuyet faces the first of multiple operations that will someday allow her to walk.\u00a0In the 1970s, hospital rules did not allow for constant parental interaction as is today’s accepted norm; remarkably, Tuyet endured her surgeries virtually alone.<\/p>\n

Thankfully, recovery proved to a full family affair: the whole Morris family not only made Tuyet physically comfortable, but each ensured that she was emotionally buoyed as well. From learning to blow out birthday “fire” and realizing that the beautiful wrapping paper is meant to be torn, to not grabbing her baby brother and seeking shelter at the sound of an airplane, to being able to balance well enough on her own two legs to kick a soccer ball, Tuyet takes her new life \u2013\u00a0and her steadily recovering legs\u00a0\u2013 one glorious, triumphant step at a time.<\/p>\n

“Thank you, Tuyet,” Skrypuch writes in her ending “Author’s Note,” “for allowing me to share your story.” Readers, too\u00a0\u2013 especially younger readers who might be facing any sort of adversity\u00a0\u2013 will surely appreciate Tuyet’s inspiring experiences. Step by step, Skrypuch shows with forthright clarity\u00a0how Tuyet becomes her own very best hero.<\/p>\n

Tidbit<\/strong>: Here’s an update (with pictures!) from Marsha Forchuk Skrypuch herself!<\/p>\n

Last year, Last Airlift<\/em> won the Red Cedar award in British Columbia and was a [2013] Red Maple Honour Book<\/a> in Ontario. These awards are readers’ choice awards, where kids do the voting. For the Red Maple award, the Ontario Library Association hosts a huge event at Harbourfront in Toronto, with thousands of kids bussed in. I arranged for Tuyet to stand on the stage with me, and for her daughter to hold the sign and her son to introduce the book. We had long snaking line-ups for autographs, and many of the kids wanted Bria and Luke to sign their books in addition to me and Tuyet signing them. I’ve got some photos on my website. Check it out here:
\n\u2666\u00a0 \u00a0Last Airlift signing with Tuyet and her kids<\/a>
\n\u2666\u00a0 \u00a0Red Maple Day at Harbourfront<\/a>
\n\u2666\u00a0 \u00a0Tuyet and Red Maple Day<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Readers<\/strong>: Middle Grade<\/p>\n

Published<\/strong>: 2013 (United States)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Introduced to U.S. readers by award-winning Canadian author\u00a0Marsha Forchuk Skrypuch\u00a0in\u00a0last year’s\u00a0Last Airlift: A Vietnamese Orphan\u2019s Rescue from War,\u00a0Son Thi Ahn Tuyet’s\u00a0story continues\u00a0\u2013 literally one step at a time. Now that Tuyet has a real home with her own real family\u00a0\u2013 Dad, Mom, sisters Beth and…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":25243,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[147,274,9,30,20,136,137,140],"tags":[82,6608,10,36,25,913,914,629,432,45],"class_list":["post-22197","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-biography","category-canadian","category-canadian-asian-pacific-american","category-middle-grade-readers","category-nonfiction","category-southeast-asian","category-southeast-asian-american","category-vietnamese-american","tag-adoption","tag-bookdragon","tag-family","tag-girl-power","tag-immigration","tag-marsha-forchuk-skrypuch","tag-one-step-at-a-time","tag-physically-challenged","tag-refugees","tag-war"],"yoast_head":"\nOne Step at a Time : A Vietnamese Child Finds Her Way by Marsha Forchuk Skrypuch - BookDragon<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/one-step-at-a-time-a-vietnamese-child-finds-her-way-by-marsha-forchuk-skrypuch\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"One Step at a Time : A Vietnamese Child Finds Her Way by Marsha Forchuk Skrypuch - BookDragon\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Introduced to U.S. readers by award-winning Canadian author\u00a0Marsha Forchuk Skrypuch\u00a0in\u00a0last year’s\u00a0Last Airlift: A Vietnamese Orphan\u2019s Rescue from War,\u00a0Son Thi Ahn Tuyet’s\u00a0story continues\u00a0\u2013 literally one step at a time. Now that Tuyet has a real home with her own real family\u00a0\u2013 Dad, Mom, sisters Beth and...\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/one-step-at-a-time-a-vietnamese-child-finds-her-way-by-marsha-forchuk-skrypuch\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"BookDragon\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2013-11-25T20:02:40+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2015-08-11T00:34:06+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/10\/2014\/04\/One-Step-at-a-Time.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"333\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"469\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@SmithsonianAPA\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"3 minutes\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"One Step at a Time : A Vietnamese Child Finds Her Way by Marsha Forchuk Skrypuch - BookDragon","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/one-step-at-a-time-a-vietnamese-child-finds-her-way-by-marsha-forchuk-skrypuch\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"One Step at a Time : A Vietnamese Child Finds Her Way by Marsha Forchuk Skrypuch - BookDragon","og_description":"Introduced to U.S. readers by award-winning Canadian author\u00a0Marsha Forchuk Skrypuch\u00a0in\u00a0last year’s\u00a0Last Airlift: A Vietnamese Orphan\u2019s Rescue from War,\u00a0Son Thi Ahn Tuyet’s\u00a0story continues\u00a0\u2013 literally one step at a time. Now that Tuyet has a real home with her own real family\u00a0\u2013 Dad, Mom, sisters Beth and...","og_url":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/one-step-at-a-time-a-vietnamese-child-finds-her-way-by-marsha-forchuk-skrypuch\/","og_site_name":"BookDragon","article_published_time":"2013-11-25T20:02:40+00:00","article_modified_time":"2015-08-11T00:34:06+00:00","og_image":[{"width":333,"height":469,"url":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/10\/2014\/04\/One-Step-at-a-Time.jpg","type":"image\/jpeg"}],"author":"Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_creator":"@SmithsonianAPA","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center","Est. reading time":"3 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/one-step-at-a-time-a-vietnamese-child-finds-her-way-by-marsha-forchuk-skrypuch\/","url":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/one-step-at-a-time-a-vietnamese-child-finds-her-way-by-marsha-forchuk-skrypuch\/","name":"One Step at a Time : A Vietnamese Child Finds Her Way by Marsha Forchuk Skrypuch - BookDragon","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/#website"},"datePublished":"2013-11-25T20:02:40+00:00","dateModified":"2015-08-11T00:34:06+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/#\/schema\/person\/a00f6dcfcb279c75f3f992ad2919d51d"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/one-step-at-a-time-a-vietnamese-child-finds-her-way-by-marsha-forchuk-skrypuch\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/one-step-at-a-time-a-vietnamese-child-finds-her-way-by-marsha-forchuk-skrypuch\/"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/one-step-at-a-time-a-vietnamese-child-finds-her-way-by-marsha-forchuk-skrypuch\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"One Step at a Time : A Vietnamese Child Finds Her Way by Marsha Forchuk Skrypuch"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/#website","url":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/","name":"BookDragon","description":"Books for the Diverse Reader","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/#\/schema\/person\/a00f6dcfcb279c75f3f992ad2919d51d","name":"Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/79b5f08575e8962bd00388cd126d374b?s=96&d=mm&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/79b5f08575e8962bd00388cd126d374b?s=96&d=mm&r=g","caption":"Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center"},"sameAs":["https:\/\/twitter.com\/@SmithsonianAPA"],"url":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/author\/riemert\/"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22197"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22197"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22197\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":38372,"href":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22197\/revisions\/38372"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25243"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22197"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22197"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22197"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}