Children of the River

Name: Children of the River
Brand: Recorded Books
Availability: InStock
Author: Linda Crew
ISBN: 9798899733796

Author: Linda Crew

Narrator: Christina Moore

Unabridged: 6 hr 11 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Recorded Books

Published: 06/01/2025

Categories: Children's Fiction, Children's Social Themes

Synopsis

Sundara fled Cambodia with her aunt’s family to escape the Khmer Rouge army when she was thirteen, leaving behind her parents, her brother and sister, and the boy she had loved since she was a child. Now, four years later, she struggles to fit in at her Oregon high school and to be "a good Cambodian girl" at home. A good Cambodian girl never dates; she waits for her family to arrange her marriage to a Cambodian boy. Yet Sundara and Jonathan, an extraordinary American boy, are powerfully drawn to each other. Haunted by grief for her lost family and for the life left behind, Sundara longs to be with him. At the same time she wonders, Are her hopes for happiness and new life in America disloyal to her past and her people? * “A powerful first novel. … A book to change readers’ eyes and hearts.”—Pointer, Kirkus Reviews IRA Children’s Book Award for Older Readers • Texas Lonestar Reading List • Washington Evergreen Young Adult Book Award

Reviews

Goodreads review by Patrick on July 22, 2021

June 17, 2012 - This book was on my son's summer reading list for going in to 8th grade. My wife read it and loved it. Arthur is almost finished with it and is enjoying it. I was totally captivated and so psyched that my son's English teacher required it. What a happy surprise. Themes: 1. Horror of co......more

Goodreads review by Infosifter on May 25, 2021

Sundara is a Khmer girl who escapes from Cambodia with some relatives with nothing but the clothes on her back and her life. Burden by guilt over a tragedy she was unable to prevent, she must find her way in America, where everything is different. 3.5 stars......more

Goodreads review by Becca on March 11, 2016

I read this book back in middle school, when it appeared on our summer reading list. I enjoyed the story then, but like other readers, I rolled my eyes a bit at the aunt's behavior. "Why couldn't she be more understanding?" I asked myself. The story has stayed with me for over a decade after that ini......more

Goodreads review by Abigail on April 17, 2023

Plot: 4/5 Pacing: 3.5/5 Writing: 4.5/5 Characters: 4.5/5 General Enjoyment: 4.5/5 Average: 4.2 stars, rounded down Children of the River begins where most books of this genre end. Sundara is a Cambodian girl who is forced to flee her home country with her aunt's family under the Khmer Rouge regime. In mos......more

Goodreads review by Raphael on September 07, 2009

Children of the river by linda crew is a book That takes place in the 70s about a Cmbodian refuge girl fleeing from the kamer roge to america. Her name is Sundara and she left both her parents behind and leving with her aunt uncle and cousins to get on a crowdwed cargo boat, filled with hundereds o......more