A Different Pond

It's a simple story of a boy and his father rising early to go fishing before the father must go to work at his second job, but it's also the rich intersections between the American and Vietnamese cultures, between the old and the new lives. The illustrations are lush and filled with lots of space for the quiet and for the spaces between the boy and his father and for the lack of things in their lives. A wonderful story.

A kid at my school said my dad's English sounds like a thick, dirty river.But to me his English sounds like gentle rain.

A sweet story about father and son bonding time and the immense work and stigma faced by refugees whose circumstances are no fault of their own. This story is simultaneously quiet and deep, balancing pain with comfort and hope.

It also features both author and illustrator notes in the back, including this gem from Bao Phi: “[My parents] sometimes told me difficult stories about the war and where we came from, including death and violence. My parents shared these stories with me, not to scare or harm me, but because these traumas were a part of our lives, and they wanted me to understand.”

Though published in 2017, this makes a perfect 2023 response to book bans and censoring curricula. It's almost like restricting access to information has always been a tool of authoritarian oppressors? Someone get me off this soapbox. For more books in this vein, see also [b:Love in the Library|57699005|Love in the Library|Maggie Tokuda-Hall|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1618184466l/57699005.SX50.jpg|90381116], [b:Watercress|54502238|Watercress|Andrea Wang|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1646343526l/54502238.SX50.jpg|85066060], [b:Migrantes|51975962|Migrantes|Issa Watanabe|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1565963710l/51975962.SX50_SY75.jpg|72942206], and [b:Sugar in Milk|50998423|Sugar in Milk|Thrity Umrigar|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1581409771l/50998423.SX50.jpg|75845152].

A great illustrated book about a boy and his father fishing. This was like reading a memoir about Bao Phi and his early childhood with learning more about his father and his culture from Vietnam. Be sure to read the authors comments at the end. I liked this story but I wish it was a little longer. ~Ashley

Assigned reading for MLIS 7421: Multicultural Youth Literature.

There's not a lot to this book, but that's part of why it works so well; it's just a story of a little boy, the youngest in a family of Vietnamese immigrants, waking up early on a Saturday morning to go fishing for dinner with his father while musing over the idea of his father as a child, fishing on a Saturday morning in a very similar pond, on the other side of the globe. It touches lightly on how difficult it is for their family to make ends meet, and how hard his parents work to keep food on the table for their children.

The author's note at the end of the book was what meant the most to me, as Bao Phi explained that this book is the story of his own childhood, and he even touched on how much the illustrations reminded him of his family home and how important they were to him as a piece of this book.