The Girl in the Picture: The Story of Kim Phuc, the Photograph, and the Vietnam War

by Denise Chong

Book Overview

More than any other Vietnam book in recent years, The Girl in the Picture confronts us with the ceaseless, ever-compounding casualties of modern warfare. --The San Francisco Chronicle

On June 8, 1972, nine-year-old Kim Phuc, severely burned by napalm, ran from her blazing village in South Vietnam and into the eye of history. Her photograph-one of the most unforgettable images of the twentieth century-was seen around the world and helped...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0140280219
• ISBN13: 9780140280210
• Release Date: August 2001
• Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
• Length: 400 Pages
• Weight: 0.77 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 5.3" x 7.9"
• Age Range: 18 years and up
• Grade Range: Postsecondary and higher

Customer Reviews

Fascinating story at several levels

This is a wonderful book. It is interesting in the discussion of village life in Viet Nam during the war. It is also an interesting retelling of the physical, emotional, and spiritual journey of the little girl, so well known from the photo. The entire story of what happened to this little girl is quite readable and in fact inspirational. I did not find it to be sappy in any way, and in fact quite moving. I highly reccomend the book.

Life Is At Your Feet

This is the life story of Kim Phuc, with supporting coverage of the horrors of Vietnam and the endless legacy of pain and sorrow caused by the war. Kim was captured on film in the devastating news photo form 1972, as she ran naked and screaming from a napalm attack (which turned out to be a friendly-fire accident, to boot). While reading this book, I was unable to stop flipping it over to look at the famous photo on the cover again and again, as writer Denise Chong does an outstanding job of bringing Kim and her story to life. Granted, the book does have a few weaknesses. Chong obviously saw the need to add background information about the war to support Kim's story, though in the attempt to summarize or introduce the issues and politics of the war, Chong's coverage seems simplistic and perfunctory. Also, as Kim's biography progresses, Chong is trying too hard, and inconsistently, to make the book "inspirational," with Kim's inner thoughts and reflections on her ongoing struggles coming across as forced and sappy in places. But these weaknesses do not damage the overall success of the book, because Kim's life story is definitely compelling, and her postwar struggles are especially informative. We learn about the wartime travails of Kim's middle-class Vietnamese family, culminating in the horrific day when she was injured and barely survived. Kim has suffered through chronic pain and constant health problems stemming from here severe napalm burns. Meanwhile the incompetent new Communist regime in Vietnam used her for years as a pawn in propaganda schemes, and ruined her once successful family. Kim spent most of her teen and young adult years trying to escape the regime's clutches and finish her schooling; and interestingly, she observed the collapse of two Communist systems, both at home and as an exchange student in Cuba. (She now lives as an activist in Canada.) Chong's coverage of the postwar hardships of those affected by the Vietnam War is especially valuable, because you see little of this type of material in standard war texts. And you will surely root for Kim Phuc as she slowly puts her lifetime of horrors behind her. [~doomsdayer520~]

Heartrending

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.

Denise Chong does a fantastic job

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.

A remarkable book that looks behind the myths.

The photo of Kim Phuc running in terror from a napalm attack is one of the best-known images of the Vietnam War. This book looks behind the photo to tell the story of an ordinary peasant thrust into the spotlight and how her life was forever changed by the click of a camera. It reveals how Kim Phuc was used as a propoganda tool by the Vietnamese and how she escaped to a new life in Canada. And it offers fascinating insights into how journalists covered the war how that one photo also changed the life of the photographer who took it.A previous review suggests it is more fiction than fact, yet it's unclear how the reviewer could come to that conclusion about a book that hasn't yet been released. Disclosure: I know Denise Chong and have actually read an early copy. She tears down some of the myths the reviewer suggests are being perpetrated. Chong makes it clear the attack was not done by Americans and was a mistake. And she also raises questions about the role of the American soldier who claimed responsibility for the attack.This book offers fascinating insights into ordinary life in Vietnam during the war and Kim Phuc's later odyssey through Cuba and Moscow to Canada. During her research trips to Vietnam, Chong's eye for detail, which came across so clearly in "The Concubine's Children," again brings a story to life. The account of the napalm attack itself and Kim's recovery from such horrible burns is a heart-wrenching drama that will bring many readers to tears. This is one of the must-read books of the year.