What's the Name of That Book??? discussion

Edit in 2019: Yay, I found it!! I have to thank some of the people who commented on this thread today, apparently that jostled loose something in my brain! The book is Absolutely Invincible by William Bell, originally unfortunately titled 'Cripples Club' - I know it was the eighties, but I'm very glad it was retitled! Now to reread this at some point :)

Okay, so this is as much as I remember!

The book is about a boy - probably a teenager - who is a refugee from a war-torn country. I think it is Vietnam but I'm not sure. He has memory loss and can't quite remember what happened to him before he left/was rescued from his home country, which is quite traumatic - the book involves flashbacks.

At school I believe he's a member of a class or group of students with various disabilities - one of them is a blind girl, if I'm remembering right. At some point in the book there's a confrontation where the girl is being groped by some other students/bullies and the main character rescues her. Oh, and I think that he's learning karate or some sort of martial arts, this helps with his flash-backs, etc?

The boy has been adopted or taken in by another family, and I seem to remember a comparison of his name to 'Hey-soos' or 'Haysus', etc? At the end of the book he has a flashback and remembers that his younger sister was killed when she stepped on a landmine, and this kind of resolves the gap in his memory and the flashbacks he's been having.

I've tried googling but no luck, hopefully someone will recognize this! I read it in paperback form from what I remember.

What country/place was the boy brought to after he was rescued?

Anything about the cover?
Time period story takes place?
Part of a series?

Is this an American book, Canadian, British, etc?

I think he was brought to the US or Canada.

I don't remember the cover, unfortunately :/

Time period - if I'm right about the boy being from Vietnam then it would have been in the late 70's, maybe early 80's?

Not part of a series. The book might be Canadian, since I'm Canadian.

A guess - To Stand Against the Wind by Ann Nolan Clark? One Amazon reviewer says: "This is a captivating account of a boy in the family who wanted to remember and record all he knew of the old way of life in Viet Nam. Along with a few members of his family, he had been taken from his homeland to live in the U.S. after his village was destroyed and many members of his family were killed in the raid on their village or in fighting in the war. He wanted to record is memories, yet they were so painful his page remained blank. The reader learns of all that happened to the family through his mental recording."

Kerri, was Kris's suggestion your book?

Oh, I thought I had replied! I don't think so, it doesn't seem to quite match... but I'll have to see if I can find a copy to be sure.

Kerri (Book Hoarder), are you still looking for this or did you find it?

No, I still haven’t found it sadly. Hopefully some day I will track it down

Try "bumping" your thread (just post a comment, such as "bump") every month or two, so it moves up to page 1 and fresh eyes get a look at it. Your post won't get much traffic if it's languishing on page 400.

Kerri (Book Hoarder) wrote: "I seem to remember a comparison of his name to 'Hey-soos' or 'Haysus', etc?"

Are you saying the boy's name was Jesus? Sounds like he might have been from a Latin American country then, not Vietnam. Google says some of those countries do have a lot of landmines.

Rainbowheart wrote: "Kerri (Book Hoarder) wrote: "I seem to remember a comparison of his name to 'Hey-soos' or 'Haysus', etc?"

Are you saying the boy's name was Jesus? Sounds like he might have been from a Latin Ameri..."

Hmm, that's a good point - I'd assumed that it had to be Vietnam because of the timing, but perhaps not.

Yay! I updated the post, but I managed to finally find this book tonight - Absolutely Invincible! Something must have triggered part of my brain in this thread tonight because I finally was able to recall the (original) title and go from there :) Now to decide whether I want to reread it :)

Awesome, glad you found it!

Fantastic.