Year of the Jungle by Suzanne Collins is an autobiography about a year in Collins’ life when she was young and her father was deployed to fight in Vietnam.
Summary
This is a touching story that is told simply as though the author is still that little girl. She tells of what life was like, in all of its normal routines, before her father went to fight in Vietnam for a year.
Suzy is the narrator, and she tells about things that her father does on a regular basis throughout the year long deployment. She marks time by using holidays to track the months, but since she is only 6 years old, she often asks “How long is a year?”
She tries to think of the jungle of Vietnam in terms of the only jungle she knows, from her favorite television show. However, when she inadvertently sees a live news broadcast from the war zone, she realizes that there is a big difference between the jungle she is thinking of and the one her father is fighting in. Her father sends postcards occasionally and makes every attempt to remain connected to his family, but it takes its toll through the year.
When he returns, Suzy notices that he has changed while he was away, but some things will always stay the same.
Impressions
This is a very personal and candid look at a frightening time in the life of a child. Collins has done a wonderful job of not exaggerating her own young behavior, but also shows that there were a lot of unknowns at the time. She makes sure to use the holidays as a calendar for the reader and they also serve to show that those days are times when military families feel the absence the most. The vulnerability of her character is really beautiful and very believable as what a child would think, feel, and do. This was a fresh approach to looking at the Vietnam war and how it affected people of all ages.
Professional Reviews
Collins tells a story based on her own childhood, the year her father was deployed in Vietnam and she began first grade. The narrator’s limited point of view is what allows a complex story to work as a picture book for young children: “My dad has to go to something called a war...He will be gone a year. How long is a year? I don’t know what anybody’s talking about.” Suzy does know that her dad is in the jungle, so she fills in that gap with happy images from her favorite cartoon. As the year goes on, her sheltered understanding is eroded by grown-ups who act worried when she tells them where her father is, by some confusing messages on the postcards her dad sends, by a sudden absence of those postcards, and finally by frightening images she sees on TV (“Explosions. Helicopters. Guns. Soldiers lie on the ground. Some of them aren’t moving”). Throughout the book, scenes of Suzy’s everyday life (getting a new lunchbox, tracing her hand to make Thanksgiving turkeys, playing with her cat) alternate with wordless spreads from Suzy’s imagination, as her benign picture of the Vietnam jungle begins to morph into something much more dark, dangerous, and realistic. At the end of the book, Suzy’s dad has returned home “different”—tired, thin, and prone to staring into space—and Suzy has changed, too, able to talk with her dad about that year and to live with the changes it has wrought. An understated, extremely effective home-front story.
Parravano, 2014
Collins mines her own experience to tell a tender personal story of war seen through a child’s eyes. First-grader Suzy’s father is deployed to Vietnam. At first, though she misses him, she dreams of the exotic jungle. But as the year goes on, marked by Christmas trees and candy hearts, things get harder. His postcards arrive less and less frequently, while news of the war, and its real dangers, comes more and more often. In the end, Suzy’s father returns, and while some things are differnet, some things are the same. Collins’ unflinching first-person accountdetails the fears and disappointments of the situation as a child would experience them. An where more realistic illustrations would feel overwrought and sentimental, Proimos’ flat, cartoony drawings, with their heaby lines and blocky shapes, are sturdy and sweet, reflecting a child’s clear eyed innocence. While small personal details and specific references to Vietnam fix the story in one child’s individual experience, it is these very particularities that establish the kind of indelible and heartfelt resonance that is universally understood. Indeed, children missing perents in all kinds of circumstances will find comfort here.
Barthelmess, 2013
Library Uses
This would be great book to share for a family/community event to make care packages or holiday cards for veterans serving overseas.
References
Barthelmess, T. (2013). Year of the Jungle. Booklist, 110(1), 105.
Collins, S., & Proimos, J. (2013). Year of the jungle. New York, NY: Scholastic Press.
Parravano, M. V. (2014). Year of the Jungle. Horn Book Magazine, 90(1), 69-70.
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