Fire Road by Kim Phuc Phan Thi { a review for Tyndale House Publishers }
This is a fantastic book. Growing up in the 1970’s I remember seeing the picture of Kim Phuc as a child. The horror of that moment, however, was lost on me at the time. By the time I was old enough to understand Kim Phuc’s plight better, I had seen the photo so many times that it’s impact was not as great as it should have been.
I knew many Vietnamese refugees growing up in school and in our community. I had read about the Vietnam War and understood the facts and figures. I also knew that these people were in a hell-storm during the war.
But I did not truly understand the personal impact of living though that time in Vietnam until I read Fire Road. Kim Phuc tells the story of her life beginning with her childhood before the Viet Cong forced her family from their idyllic home. She describes her thoughts when the napalm was dropped in the temple that her family was using as a shelter, and she tells her story as she recovers from the burns and injuries she sustained.
I would recommend this book to any adult as well as mature teenagers. You will understand the plight of the bystanders in the war who struggled to maintain their lives. You will also realize the depths that Kim Phuc reached and how her faith in God gave her the strength to endure a lifetime of pain and eventually a path to forgiveness and love.
Publisher’s Summary
Get out! Run! We must leave this place! They are going to destroy this whole place! Go, children, run first! Go now!
These were the final shouts nine year-old Kim Phuc heard before her world dissolved into flames—before napalm bombs fell from the sky, burning away her clothing and searing deep into her skin. It’s a moment forever captured, an iconic image that has come to define the horror and violence of the Vietnam War. Kim was left for dead in a morgue; no one expected her to survive the attack. Napalm meant fire, and fire meant death.
Against all odds, Kim lived—but her journey toward healing was only beginning. When the napalm bombs dropped, everything Kim knew and relied on exploded along with them: her home, her country’s freedom, her childhood innocence and happiness. The coming years would be marked by excruciating treatments for her burns and unrelenting physical pain throughout her body, which were constant reminders of that terrible day. Kim survived the pain of her body ablaze, but how could she possibly survive the pain of her devastated soul?
Fire Road is the true story of how she found the answer in a God who suffered Himself; a Savior who truly understood and cared about the depths of her pain. Fire Road is a story of horror and hope, a harrowing tale of a life changed in an instant—and the power and resilience that can only be found in the power of God’s mercy and love.
About the Authors
On June 8, 1972, during the Vietnam War, a little girl made world news when she was photographed escaping her Vietnamese village, which had been bombed with napalm.
Nine-year-old Kim Phuc was so badly burned that she was not expected to survive, but after fourteen months in a Saigon hospital and sixteen skin-graft surgeries, she returned to her village to begin rebuilding her life.
During the years that followed, Kim struggled with physical pain as well as being used as a propaganda tool by the communist government. In 1986, she moved to Cuba to pursue her education. There, she met a young Vietnamese student, Toan Bui, who later became her husband. In 1992, she and Toan defected to Canada, where they have dedicated their lives to promoting peace.
Today, Kim is the founder of the Kim Foundation International in Ontario, Canada.
