How I Drew from My Childhood Experiences to Write A Year Without Home by V.T. Bidania and A Year Without Home Giveaway

 Happy Monday, Everyone! Today I have V.T. Bidania here with a guest post on how she drew on her own childhood experiences to write her MG novel in verse A Year Without Home. It sounds like a powerful story about a time in history that I don’t know much about, and I’m looking forward to reading it. 

Here’s a blurb from Goodreads: 

A poignant middle grade novel in verse about a Hmong girl losing and finding home in the aftermath of the Vietnam War. For fans of Jasmine Warga and Veera Hiranandani.

For eleven-year-old Gao Sheng, home is the lush, humid jungles and highlands of Laos. Home is where she can roll down the grassy hill with her younger siblings after her chores, walk to school, and pick ripe peaches from her family’s trees.

But home becomes impossible to hold onto when U.S. troops pull out of the Vietnam War. The communists will be searching for any American allies, like Gao Sheng’s father, a Hmong captain in the Royal Lao Army who fought alongside the Americans against the Vietnamese. If he’s caught, he’ll be killed.

As the adults frantically make plans – contacting family, preparing a route, and bundling up their silver and gold, Gao Sheng wonders if she will ever return to her beloved Laos and what’s to become of her family now. Gao Sheng only knows that a good daughter doesn’t ask questions or complain. A good daughter doesn’t let her family down. Even though sometimes, she wishes she could be just a kid rolling down a grassy hill again.

On foot, by taxi and finally in a canoe, Gao Sheng and her family make haste from the mountains to the capitol Vientiane and across the rushing Mekong River, to finally arrive at an overcrowded refugee camp in Thailand. As a year passes at the camp, Gao Sheng discovers how to rebuild home no matter where she is and finally find her voice.

Inspired by author V.T. Bidania’s family history, A Year Without a Home illuminates the long, difficult journey that many Hmong refugees faced after the Vietnam War. 

Now here’s V.T.! 

            I wish I could say I am a very organized writer with a clear and structured process, but the truth is, when I started writing this novel, I only had a vague idea of what it would be about. I knew it would be the story of my family’s escape from Laos after the Vietnam War. I knew it would be a verse novel. And I knew my sister Gao Sheng, who was around eleven at the time it takes place, would be the protagonist. 

            Without a solid plot in hand, I put together a loose outline based on the chronological events of the days leading up to my family’s escape, our actual escape, and our time in the refugee camps afterwards. I used this outline to begin drafting, and quickly discovered that I also needed to plan my protagonist’s growth. 

            Besides being forced to flee from her home country, what internal conflicts would Gao Sheng face and overcome? What could serve as her motivation to do whatever she does in the story? Most of all, how would we see her grow by the end of the book? 

            I needed to flesh out this character. As a reader, what I love most about novels in verse is the emotional connection we can make with characters. So, I asked my sister to tell me anything and everything she could remember about how she felt during this time. I wanted all the details, from the smiles and giggles to every pang of hurt and each teardrop. Then I noted all the emotions she described and went back to writing, determined to create an authentic representation of her experience. 

            As I wrote, I found myself thinking back to my own childhood too. I didn’t have to dig deep to recall how I spent much of my time as a kid. Three things came to my mind and along with notes from my sister’s interviews, I chose to focus on these for my main character: homesickness, daydreaming, and not speaking up. 

Homesickness

             First, I remembered my own homesickness as a child. Although I have no concrete memories of Laos because we left when I was less than a year old, I always felt homesick for it. It was a place I longed to return to every day, a place that was so beautiful and perfect to me, it was practically magical. (I finally traveled back to Laos in 2024, my first time there since we left, and it was even more beautiful than I ever imagined.) 

            I wanted Gao Sheng to miss and think of Laos often in the book, because she did in real life—and so did I. I made sure readers would see this in her thoughts to herself, understand it in her not-so-positive comments and descriptions about camp life, and feel it in her expressions of sadness and heartbreak. Her ache and yearning weren’t difficult to articulate because this was exactly how I remembered my childhood days, constantly missing the home I’d left behind and wishing with every fiber of my being that I could return to it. 

Daydreaming 

                     I spent much of my childhood reading books and hardly playing outside or even inside with other kids the way a child usually does. When I wasn’t reading, I was daydreaming. I lived in the worlds I read about and inside the stories I made up in my mind. It may have been my fascination with books or my lively imagination, but I was completely consumed with the idea of traveling to and visiting places anywhere away from where I was. 

            Since my sister told me she often thought about our house on the hill, I made sure to show her daydreaming about dizzily rolling down the perfect grass of that hill and smelling the sweet peaches in the afternoon breezes. In the hot city surrounded by traffic and noisy, store-lined streets, I wrote of how she missed the sunny days and peaceful, green mountains of home. On her way to the refugee camp, she wondered what her new house would look like and vividly imagined a fantastical place with gardens and peach trees that in actuality, resembled her house. In the crowded camp, she dreamed—literally and figuratively—of the rain in the mountains and the misty morning air on her cheeks. 

Not Speaking Up 

            As a kid, I was painfully shy. I was the fifth in a family of seven and was never quiet or shy at home but remember feeling regularly embarrassed and awkward at school. Days and weeks would go by when I wouldn’t open my mouth even once in class, or at lunchtime or recess. I had become so self-conscious at first because I wasn’t fluent in English and then because teachers and classmates couldn’t say my name. Looking back, it wasn’t that difficult. Vong is only one syllable and is pronounced phonetically, so I’m not sure what all the fuss was about, but anyway, the repeated frustration from others about my name caused me to want to shrink and hide. 

            There were countless times when I wanted to say something, when I knew the answers to questions teachers were asking, when I overheard classmates talking about something I had an opinion about or suggestions or solutions to contribute, or even in gym class when we were taught square dancing and I was the kid leading the dance—even though I was mortified to do it!—because I couldn’t speak up and like everyone else, say no, I didn’t want to. 

            My sister never communicated her disappointment or disagreement with what was happening around her, even if she was upset or felt desperate to. I used this and my uncomfortable childhood memories to write her as someone who wished to speak up for herself, share her ideas, or simply speak louder and be heard, but found it impossible to. 

            I wanted to show her gradual progression to finally becoming more assertive, finding her voice, and expressing herself, so I gave her small, steady wins as the story moved forward. I was most excited when at the end, she helped her father, displayed her strength to her family at last and gained recognition for it, even if the recognition was subtle. 

            Drawing from my childhood to write my protagonist, even though she was based on a real-life person I had access to and could speak with directly, helped me develop this character. It helped me create a plot I loved. It helped me write a book that is personal and so meaningful to me. At first, I wasn’t entirely sure how I would shape this story and her, but in the end, using these experiences allowed me to write what I hope is an authentic character that readers will relate to and write a book they can connect with emotionally. Whether or not your work is autobiographical, exploring your childhood feelings can help give your writing an affecting impact. 

Thanks for sharing all your advice, V.T.! You can find her at https://www.vtbidania.com/ 

Giveaway Details 

V.T.’s publisher is generously offering a hardback of A Year Without Home for a giveaway. To enter, all you need to do is be a follower of my blog (via the follower gadget, email, or bloglovin’ on the right sidebar) and leave a comment by February 14th. If I do not have your email (I can no longer get it from your Google Profile), you must leave it in the comments to enter the contest. Please be sure I have your email address. 

If you mention this contest on Twitter, Facebook, or other social media sites and/or follow me on Twitter or Bluesky or follow V.T. on her social media sites, mention this in the comments, and I'll give you an extra entry for each. You must be 13 years old or older to enter. This book giveaway is U.S. 

Marvelous Middle Grade Monday is hosted by Greg Pattridge. You can find the participating blogs on his blog.  

Upcoming Interviews, Guest Posts, and Blog Hops 

Wednesday, February 3, I have an interview with Alichia Dow and a giveaway of her YA Until the Clock Strikes Midnight and my IWSG post 

Monday, February 9, I have an interview with Seema Yasmin and a giveaway of her MG Maysoon Zayid, The Girl Who Can 

Wednesday, February 11, I have an agent spotlight interview with Tamara Kawar and a query critique giveaway 

Sunday, February 15, I’m participating in the Wish Big Giveaway Hop 

Monday, February 16, I have a guest post by Michael P. Spraudlin and a giveaway of his MG The Spider Strikes 

Monday, February 23, I have an interview with Christyne Morrell and a giveaway of her MG The Case of the Scarlet Snakebite 

Wednesday, February 25, I have an agent spotlight with Renee Runge and a query critique giveaway 

I hope to see you on Wednesday!