Vietnamese author Huynh Quang Nhoung wrote the book The Land I Lost. The setting, conflicts, and theme were very interesting in this book. This book too place on an old Vietnamese community farm. Family, friends, and animals lived with the villages. There was a dense jungle bordering part of the small hamlet. There were quite a bit of conflicts throughout this book. Animals would occasionally wander into the village, kill a few cattle, and care everyone. One time, a neighbor stole young Nhoung's trained birds. He stole the small pet back in the middle of night. The best thee to relate to this story is 'Be Thankful For What Has Been Given To You'. These ancient people were very lucky they even had this little piece of land to live and farm on. They were able to harvest enough food to survive and even had some left over to sell at the market. Certain forces or circumstances make the main character or characters act as they do. I find the most interesting part of this book was the characters. There were Many characters, all with there own personalities. Many of these characters happen to be animals. Huynh Quang Nhoung was by far the most important person. The autobiography of Nhoung included his cousin, whose name was never given. His cousin trained a water buffalo to attack and defend itself against crazy animals from the jungle. He taught three little birds to sing separate songs on command after addicting them to opium. Another character is a loose horse snake from the nearby jungle. This snake attempted to steal fish from a neighbor's private pond and squeezed a cow to death, only to be slaughtered by a group of furious farmers. A monkey, belonging to an old woman once ran away from her while she was at market. He stole ...
