Dogtag Summer

Introduction

Twelve-year-old Tracy-or Tuyet-has always felt different. The villagers
in Vietnam called her con-lai, or "half-breed," because her father was
an American GI. And she doesn''t fit in with her adoptive family in
California, either.

The Discovery

But when Tracy and a friend discover a soldier''s
dogtag hidden among her father''s things, it sets her past and her
present on a collision course.

The Dilemma

Where should her broken heart come to
rest? In a time and place she remembers only in her dreams? Or among the
people she now calls family?

Conclusion

Partridge''s sensitive portrayal of a girl
and her family grappling with the complicated legacy of war is as timely
today as the events were decades ago.