A short first-person novel details the difficulties Nam-Huong faces in adjusting to her new neighborhood and school and to another culture after leaving Vietnam to live with guardians in Australia. Numb with grief and sorrow at losing her family and home, Nam-Huong rarely speaks and, as a result, is ridiculed by neighborhood children and classmates. The depth of loss she feels is communicated in a series of letters she writes to a canary, a duck and a buffalo--animals she remembers from her earlier life in Vietnam. Numerous pencil drawings accompany this sensitive story of a young girl coping with tragic loss and taking her first steps toward emotional healing. The author's sources included narratives of adolescent girls who came to Australia from South-east Asia during the late 1970s/early 1980s. (Ages 7-10)

Nam-Huong is a young Vietnamese refugee trying to come to terms with her new life in Australia without her family. She cries a lot of onion tears but eventually learns to smile inside and laugh so her tears fall like drops of dew.