{"id":47128,"date":"2020-08-17T11:12:43","date_gmt":"2020-08-17T15:12:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/?p=47128"},"modified":"2020-07-09T22:17:17","modified_gmt":"2020-07-10T02:17:17","slug":"the-magic-fish-by-trung-le-nguyen-in-booklist","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/the-magic-fish-by-trung-le-nguyen-in-booklist\/","title":{"rendered":"The Magic Fish by Trung Le Nguyen [in Booklist]"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-medium wp-image-46903\" src=\"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/10\/2020\/05\/Magic-Fish-Trung-le-Nguyen-BookDragon-565x800.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"565\" height=\"800\" srcset=\"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/10\/2020\/05\/Magic-Fish-Trung-le-Nguyen-BookDragon-565x800.jpg 565w, https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/10\/2020\/05\/Magic-Fish-Trung-le-Nguyen-BookDragon.jpg 633w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 565px) 100vw, 565px\" \/><strong>*STARRED REVIEW<\/strong><br \/>\nThe magic happens here on <em>every<\/em> page, the perfection personified by debut author\/artist <a href=\"http:\/\/www.trungles.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\">Trung Le Nguyen<\/a>\u2019s 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 Ti\u1ebfn and his mother learning to communicate through the language of fairy tales when difficult conversations can\u2019t yet be uttered; brown is the older past, of Ti\u1ebfn\u2019s mother\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n<p>Ti\u1ebfn has a secret he desperately needs to declare, especially to his mother, but she\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n<p>Even as his panels end, Nguyen\u2019s magic continues \u2013 as writer, his spare author\u2019s note is an articulate reclamation, even reinvention, of the immigrant narrative; as artist, his detailed commentary on illustrative genesis \u2013 European, colonial, Asian, American Midwest inspirations \u2013 provide both historical and personal revelations.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Review<\/strong>: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.booklistonline.com\/The-Magic-Fish-Trung-Le-Nguyen\/pid=9736565\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\">&#8220;Graphic Novels,&#8221; <em>Booklist<\/em>, July 2020<\/a><\/p>\n<p><strong>Readers<\/strong>: Middle Grade, Young Adult<\/p>\n<p><strong>Published<\/strong>: 2020<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>*STARRED REVIEW The magic happens here on every page, the perfection personified by debut author\/artist Trung Le Nguyen\u2019s 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&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":46903,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,73,30,6535,18,136,139,140,31],"tags":[6608,6668,58,10,438,11,24,51,25,50,13,9203,129,39,432,9202,45],"class_list":["post-47128","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-fiction","category-graphic-novel-manga-manwha","category-middle-grade-readers","category-repost","category-south-asian-american","category-southeast-asian","category-vietnamese","category-vietnamese-american","category-young-adult-readers","tag-bookdragon","tag-booklist","tag-coming-of-age","tag-family","tag-folklore-legend-myth","tag-friendship","tag-historical","tag-identity","tag-immigration","tag-lgbtqia","tag-love","tag-magic-fish","tag-mother-daughter-relationship","tag-parent-child-relationship","tag-refugees","tag-trung-le-nguyen","tag-war"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v19.14 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>The Magic Fish by Trung Le Nguyen [in Booklist] - BookDragon<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/the-magic-fish-by-trung-le-nguyen-in-booklist\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Magic Fish by Trung Le Nguyen [in Booklist] - BookDragon\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"*STARRED REVIEW The magic happens here on every page, the perfection personified by debut author\/artist Trung Le Nguyen\u2019s autobiographical homage to the infinite power of storytelling. 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