The haunting image that screams from the front cover of this book - a nine-year-old girl, severely burned by napalm, running naked and terrified from her village, is one of the most potent and enduring images of the Vietnam War. For the onlooker, this famous photograph captures the severity and horror of war. The reader of The Girl in the Picture, however, is taken beyond the emotive snapshot of that moment and told the story of the girl who was forever frozen on film; who became a part of history. Kim Phuc became a symbol of the war in Vietnam and as such was used and controlled by the Vietnamese government as propaganda. Her dreams of becoming a doctor and living her own life were gradually destroyed by bad health, extreme poverty and an oppressive communist regime. This book is a deeply saddening evocation of the way normal lives were shattered by the war in Vietnam. It is also a must-read for those who have only ever experienced a Vietnam made in Hollywood.