17 Aug / The Magic Fish by Trung Le Nguyen [in Booklist]
*STARRED REVIEW
The magic happens here on every page, the perfection personified by debut author/artist Trung Le Nguyen’s autobiographical homage to the infinite power of storytelling. The opening page ingeniously distinguishes three interwoven narratives with three color palettes: red is the urgent now, about young Tiến and his mother learning to communicate through the language of fairy tales when difficult conversations can’t yet be uttered; brown is the older past, of Tiến’s mother’s cleaving journey from war-torn Vietnam to become a U.S. citizen; blue are the stories we tell to help understand, shape, and even save our very lives.
Tiến has a secret he desperately needs to declare, especially to his mother, but she’s suddenly called back to Vietnam when her own mother dies. Three parallel stories bind the generations together: mother and son read aloud Alera, a Cinderella-esque story of cross-dressing true love; mother-in-mourning and her elderly aunt recall the fairy godparent-like magic fish; mother-returned and son-in-waiting share a different magic fish, a voiceless mermaid who learns to speak through dance. Such are the stories that will reveal the truth.
Even as his panels end, Nguyen’s magic continues – as writer, his spare author’s note is an articulate reclamation, even reinvention, of the immigrant narrative; as artist, his detailed commentary on illustrative genesis – European, colonial, Asian, American Midwest inspirations – provide both historical and personal revelations.
Review: “Graphic Novels,” Booklist, July 2020
Readers: Middle Grade, Young Adult
Published: 2020