A Book Review: The Last Flight, By Kristen Mai Giang, author, and Dow Phumiruk, illustrator. A hardcopy picture book published by Levine Querido (April 4, 2023.)

Last Flight chronicles the triumph of the human spirit over the chaos of war – it is the story of the last commercial airliner to leave Saigon before its fall to communist North Vietnam troops in April 1975. The author Kristen Mai Giang was a toddler on the flight along with her father, an employee of Pan Am Airlines, her mother, her eight-year-old sister, Linh, the narrator of this story, and her four brothers. The youngest Luong was a babe in arms.
The book opens with a lovely simile, Saigon “sounded like a song.” We move from an aerial view of Saigon to the bustling street level of sound and motion. “The slap slap of sandals. The buzz hum of motorbikes. Streets that never stop moving.”
Illustrator Dow Phumiruk has done her research down to the boxy Citroen LaDalat cars, Cyclos, three-wheeled cycle taxis, street vendors, bicycles, and motorbikes. Some Vietnamese wear the traditional conical hat, Nón Lá, and use carrying poles. One woman wears an áo dài, a long shirt, or a high collar dress split up the sides worn with pants which are traditional Vietnamese costume. 'Phumiruk’s digital art transports the reader into 1970s Saigon.
The mother, Ma who is expecting a child, and the two girls are introduced as they scurry across the busy Saigon street a few months prior to the fateful flight. “Don’t be afraid,” the first interior dialogue of the narrator introduces one of the themes of the book, her father’s, Ba’s, words to her. “Don’t be afraid,” is echoed throughout the book.
The song of Saigon changes and becomes more bellicose as the sound of soldiers’ “heavy boots, warning whistles” and explosions are now heard in Saigon as the war moves closer. The illustration carries the scene emotionally further as the two girls turn away from soldiers in the street to their mother. The younger girl clings to their mother’s leg while the older girl covers her ears with her hands and leans into her mother. Bystanders show their surprise and alarm.
Even in a war-torn country life goes on as the narrator recounts her parents breaking curfew the night her brother was born. The reader sees Ba and Ma stealthy leaving on a motorbike guided by a lantern as they travel to the hospital; the baby boy is their sixth child and fourth son. His birth made the children forget the war until rumors of the fall of Saigon reverberates everywhere. “The song was ending.” The family and others gather to watch the news on a 1970s portable TV with rabbit ears.
Two of the best Illustrations occur in the middle of the book and serve as the turning point. The first is an intimate portrait of Ma, the two girls and the baby –their eyes tell it all, worry sadness, anxiety, and fear. A dark shadow- also used in several other instances in the book- envelops them. It is reminiscent of the Black Thing (Evil) from Madeleine L'Engle's A Wrinkle in Time: “It was a shadow, nothing but a shadow. It was not even as tangible as a cloud. Was it cast by something? Or was it a Thing in itself?...”
As the war moves closer, tear gas fills the air and Ma puts paper bags over the girls’ heads. They imagine they are astronauts like the U.S. astronauts that landed on the moon. The image shows them in space high above Saigon where they can see both Vietnam and the United States. These two illustrations in juxtaposition – the fear and uncertainty in one and the ironic levity in the other- show children’s’ resiliency lies in their own imaginations.
The war surrounds the family. A montage of images closes in: a soldier hides behind a sand bag with a bazooka; soldiers help injured soldiers; a soldier confronts a family, a plane crashes in downtown Saigon; civilians are taken prisoners; and, helicopters fly filling the skies. Trapped in the center are Pan Am's Director of Operations for Vietnam and Cambodia in Saigon, Alan Topping, Ba, and two other Pan Am Employees. Ma and the children are wedged in between the war scenes and the Pan Am employees. There seems to be an insurmountable problem – no one has the necessary papers to leave the country. They will take months to obtain if they can be had at all. They have a matter of days, not months, so Topping borrows a page from Operation Babylift and he adopts 315 employees and their families.
After many nail-biting moments and countless small miracles, the Pan Am flight, reclassified as a US government charter flight, would be allowed to take off from the closed airport. “All was clamor and crush and push push push.”
Luggage was thrown off to make more room, and money was collected in a pillowcase to buy additional papers for the extra passengers from officials. The heavy plane lumbers down the runway until it finally hits lift-off speed and its wheels up with 463 souls aboard – a 100 more than the flight was designed to hold. “It was a miracle.”
The little narrator freezes when it is time to walk down the plane stairs into her new life. Her little sister looks to her for comfort and guidance, and she remembers what Ma and Ba had told her as she held her sister’s hand and says, “Don’t Be Afraid.”
Human hearts- full of hope, love, courage, sacrifice, and with a concern for others’ welfare above their own - defeated war, death, destruction and chaos that day.

The publisher Levine Querido has produced an exceptional quality book; slightly oversized, the book has thick glossy pages. The book cover is well designed with Phumiruk’s drawings of helicopters flying over Saigon and the Pan Am plane flying into Southern California on the front and back covers respectively. The endpapers are maps plotting the plane leaving Saigon and arriving in Southern California. The dust jacket is attractive with illustrations of the two little girls and family at the airport. Giang’s text is heartfelt and authentic while Phumiruk’s detailed illustrations are in perfect lock-step with the text and add to the emotional impact, as well as providing details beyond the text. Included in the end material is a photo of Kristen Mai Giang’s family, an Author’s Note, Flight Facts and a Bibliography. This additional material is extremely informative.

Last Flight is a five-star book and is highly recommended. The age limits of the listener or reader provide a bit of a quandary as the story is complex and the text is fairly simple. The book will be enjoyed by third and fourth graders as a great introduction to the Vietnam conflict and the fall of Saigon, as well as a story of courage on the strength of the narrative and the illustrations. As to younger age groups (4-5), this should be dependent on each individual child and adult judgment. This book is a must have for all libraries.