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Rating: 
Summary: Denise Chong does a fantastic job
Review: I have read hundreds of books on Vietnam. This is one of the best. It really gets across the point of view of those poor peasants in the rural areas caught between the communists on one side and the government on the other side. That the girl survived was a miracle. All the pain and suffering that resulted after the communists took over is well documented. This young lady because of the photo was helped from time to time by those on both sides. She became a personal friend of Pham Van Dong the Communist leader of Vietnam. Yet this did not stop her or her family from suffering under the communists.
Rating: 
Summary: Living with courage and faith
Review: I think that the Kim's story is fantastic. She truly is living with faith, not only in Christ but in people. She has allowed herself to move forward and use her position in life to help better other's lives as well. I was only a toddler when she was photographed, however, I remember seeing the photo all of my life. I can truly respect her and her struggle to become the woman she is today. I now have someone else to look up to. Thank you to D.Chong for allowing a strong woman's story to be heard.
Rating:
Summary: Living with courage and faith
Review: I think that the Kim's story is fantastic. She truly is living with faith, not only in Christ but in people. She has allowed herself to move forward and use her position in life to help better other's lives as well. I was only a toddler when she was photographed, however, I remember seeing the photo all of my life. I can truly respect her and her struggle to become the woman she is today. I now have someone else to look up to. Thank you to D.Chong for allowing a strong woman's story to be heard.
Rating: 
Summary: not enough insight into Kim Phuc
Review: I was disappointed in this book about the life a girl caught in crossfire. Kim Phuc was burn due to an accidental bombing of South Vietnamese position in Trang Bang. She survives but several other civilians and South Vietnamese soldiers were killed during this accident (the author did not reveal this). I bought this book because I wanted to know more about Kim Phuc, about how she felt being used by the Socialist Republic of Vietnam as a living monument to the Yankee imperialist crimes. Instead, I got only a superficial view of Kim Phuc and her family. Also, the author ignorant of Vietnamese history was much in evident such as the claimed she made that the picture of Kim Phuc stop the American involment in Vietnam, in reality, the Americans have already onthe way out of Vietnam at that time. Also, I do not know of any Vietnamese refugees who blamed Kim Phuc for making the S. Viets lose the war as the author claimed. Most of the author general view of the Vietnam War was wrong and I wish that she would forget such attempt to be a historian and instead focus on being a storyteller about a courageous woman.
Rating:
Summary: Heartrending
Review: You don't really enjoy a book like this. It's a story of almost unremitting suffering. I found the story riveting, well written and troubling. Of course, I knew the picture and I'd seen the documentary when I was in England several years ago, but the details in the book and the evident research provide a much deeper understanding. It is a very human story, the suffering of one girl in particular, but also her family, and she is one of many. The book gives a concise account of the historical background to the bombing. It will serve as a good introduction to those that do not know about these events, and will be useful for visitors to Vietnam. The author also narrates the stories of members of Kim Phuc's family and their struggle for existence during those hard times. I've been to Vietnam, including Saigon, not far from where the awful atrocity took place, so I feel a closeness to the place. I saw the famous photograph in the American War Crimes Museum (now renamed) in Saigon. My life in Bali cannot compare to Kim Phuc's, but I understand a little some of her family's difficulties - the paranoid fear of Communism in the 1960s (there was an alleged Communist coup in Indonesia in 1965), the hard work involved in running a small restaurant (I started mine from scratch in 1974 just like Kim's mother did) and the hassles of dealing with officials (the author describes these well). It is doubly distressing that Kim Phuc was so cruelly used and cheated by others for their own purposes. Governments, officials, journalists. One can only have contempt for them and wish Kim Phuc a better life in Canada. I would certainly recommend this book to anyone. It has 370 pages and there are several pages of photographs.
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