A poignant coming-of-age story told in two alternating voices: a California teenager railing against the Vietnamese culture, juxtaposed with her father as an eleven-year-old boat person on a harrowing and traumatic refugee journey from Vietnam to the United States. “A profoundly moving, achingly resonant story of love, family, and coming of age amid the lingering echoes of war; a luminous tapestry woven from the many threads of American dreams.” ―Jeff Zentner, award-winning author of The Serpent King and In the Wild Light San Jose, 1999. Jane knows her Vietnamese dad can’t control his temper. Lost in a stupid daydream, she forgot to pick up her seven-year-old brother, Paul, from school. Inside their home, she hands her dad the stick he hits her with. This is how it’s always been. She deserves this. Not because she forgot to pick up Paul, but because at the end of the summer she’s going to leave him when she goes away to college. As Paul retreats inward, Jane realizes she must explain where their dad’s anger comes from. The problem is, she doesn’t quite understand it herself. Đà Nẵng, 1975. Phúc (pronounced /fo͞ok/, rhymes with duke) is eleven the first time his mother walks him through a field of mines he’s always been warned never to enter. Guided by cracks of moonlight, Phúc moves past fallen airplanes and battle debris to a refugee boat. But before the sun even has a chance to rise, more than half the people aboard will perish. This is only the beginning of Phúc’s perilous journey across the Pacific, which will be fraught with Thai pirates, an unrelenting ocean, starvation, hallucination, and the unfortunate murder of a panda. Told in the alternating voices of Jane and Phúc, My Father, The Panda Killer is an unflinching story about war and its impact across multiple generations, and how one American teenager forges a path toward accepting her heritage and herself. ★ " An important book , highly recommended for high school and public libraries." — School Library Journal, starred review "A gripping and difficult story of a family surviving abuse." — Kirkus Reviews "Lush storytelling... a riveting intergenerational drama ." —Publishers Weekly " Hoang does a skillful job in capturing multigenerational trauma with Jane's teenage angst and Phúc's damaging voyage." — The Horn Book Jamie Jo Hoang , the daughter of Vietnamese refugees, grew up in Orange County, CA—not the wealthy part. She worked for MGM Studios and later, as a docu-series producer. Now she writes novels and blogs full time. When Jamie’s not writing, she’s wandering, pondering, and chasing experiences. Her self-published first novel, Blue Sun, Yellow Sky, is a Kirkus Reviews Best Book of the Year. CHAPTER 1 Jane Angry. I’m angry that I’m thinking about my mom again. It’s the last thing I want to be thinking about. But here I am.   My mom left us when my brother, Paul, was three, almost four, or maybe he was four. Actually, he must have been four because the week after she left, he started preschool. Whenever I think about that week, I wonder what must have been going on in her head as she packed my lunch, knowing she wasn’t coming back. Did she think about us? Were we the reason she left? Was I not helpful enough, not smart enough, not clean enough? Did I need too much? Did I annoy her? Why was she so unhappy? Was it us? Did she not want to be a mother? Or was it something else or someone else? A scandalous love affair with some shop patron? If so, had I seen this man before?   Because the thing is, I never heard my parents fight.   They weren’t in love or anything stupid like that. I didn’t grow up believing in fairy tales or princes or equality. My family is old-school—as in America in like the fifties, except it’s 1999. My father is the head of the household. He controls every aspect of our lives, from the finances to our daily schedules, and no one—not even my mother—ever argues with him. So, we might be American, but we’re certainly not Americanized.   Surprised. I was surprised she left. I am surprised. Not that she wanted to go or thought about it, but that she actually did it, and if I didn’t have a stomach full of resentment, I might have even admired her for it. But I was fourteen, and all I really felt was abandoned. Left to fend for myself and Paul at a time when my classmates were gushing about who might ask them to homecoming. The bitterness, even three years later, is strong. As for Paul, he was too young to really understand anything, so he probably assumes she died.   That day, the day she left, I knew something was wrong when my dad picked me up. My dad never picks me up from school. That he even knew where it was is perplexing. Since kin- dergarten, not once had he ever attended an academic function. Education was my mom’s domain. She never cared to check my homework or report cards; no, my enrollment was about being free of me for seven hours a day, five days a week.   My suspicions gr