Inside out and back again


Hà doesn't know much English, so she describes her surroundings based on how she sees them. For example, she doesn’t know what a hotdog is and describes it as “the pink sausage/ snuggled inside bread/ shaped like a corncob,/ smeared with sauces/ yellow and red.” Choose a place from your own life—your classroom, the hallways, the library, your school's lunchroom—and describe it avoiding terms usually associated with the thing you describe. As you write your description, use the excerpt from Inside Out and Back Again as inspiration.