This is a really interesting book about a part of very recent history that I knew nothing about. The story takes place in a refugee camp and is told from the perspective of a young Hmong child, watching the Yang Warriors, a group if children aged between five and ten years old, as they trained and planned for a better life.
The illustrations are really clever and each time I looked back through the book, I noticed more in each one. Overall, this was a very interesting and accessible story, about events that should really be more widely known about.

The first I read this copy, I didn't like the story. It made me feel sad.
The second time I read it, I love it!
The illustrations and the vocabularies are perfect for young readers. And the sad feeling just made sense,

I need this book on my shelves. Like I won't be satisfied with just one copy.

This book is so damn beautiful!

The storyline is charming and relevant talking about refugee children playing different roles with what they believe was going on around.

Also, it emphasizes the struggling families especially with children suffering from different ailments.

The writing is quite emotional and makes the reader see their world so vividly. Everything else but hunger. It just tears you apart to see the characters suffering due to hunger and what they have to go through to get their bellies fed.

Wars. Be. Damned.

Human. The so called fashionably developed beings. Let's start using our brains. It's just not technology that makes us 'advanced'.

And yes, it's the art, the illustrations that drove my heart flutter. Seriously, the artist is just too good!

Do make sure to read the author's and the illustrator's notes towards the end of the book. I appreciate this book so much!

Thank you, authors and publishers for the copy.

Considering that I am a librarian in Minnesota, were we have a large Hmong population, this book would be an automatic purchase, just because it is so hard to find Hmong #ownvoices books. It is an added bonus that Yang Warriors is a good book that I think will appeal to my students. While my students are too young to have been in the Ban Vinai Refugee Camp, it is an important part of Hmong history. I would highly recommend this book.

Thanks to the publisher and to Net Galley for providing me with an ARC in exchange for my honest review.

Children are the fastest of adapters to change and the bravest under adverse circumstances. No other book exemplifies this fact so beautifully as much as Yang Warriors does.

Yang Warriors narrates one incident in the life of a group of young refugee children in the Ban Vinai refugee camp in Thailand. The children are of the Hmong background, and in the camp after their escape from the persecution in Laos. Led by ten year old Master Me, the children train daily for whenever time needs them to be brave. And soon, the day comes when they need to take a difficult decision.

Based on an actual experience from author Kao Kalia Yang's childhood, Yang Warriors goes to inspire bravery and hope in the hearts of the readers. Great children's fiction always offers valuable lessons that even adults can do well to imbibe. This is one such book.

I can't end this review without mentioning the illustrations. As a picture book, Yang Warriors needs to have fabulous sketches, and illustrator Billy Thao, an Hmong American himself, doesn't disappoint. Every single sketch is A-grade. The story is impactful on its own but is taken into a whole new dimension because of the illustrations.

A beautiful, beautiful book this, both in pictures and in words.