Silent meditation retreats are havens for deep, spiritual enlightenment, and it’s the last place Binh wants to be—especially after fighting off a bully in school for having taunted his Vietnamese heritage. From award-winning author and graphic novelist Minh Lê (Drawn Together, Green Lantern: Legacy) and New York Times bestselling illustrator Chan Chau (Baby-Sitter’s Club) comes Enlighten Me, a coming-of-age story steeped in Buddhist traditions, history, and folklore.
The story begins with Binh and his family headed to the peaceful Three Jewels Mountain Retreat, a silent meditation camp where he surrenders his treasured Game Boy upon arriving. This is the last place he expected to find himself after defending himself from a school bully who directed anti-Asian slurs at his Vietnamese culture. Why was he punished for being the victim? The vice principal figured a weekend family trip here would address his violent behavior. He joins the others kids to practice the art of meditation, but before long, sore legs, a stiff back, and disruptive thoughts invade his mind and distract his focus. Not until Sister Peace, one of the Buddhist monks, begins recounting wondrous tales about the Buddha does Binh embark on a path toward self-enlightenment and deep understanding.
The plot shifts into gear as Binh learns about Prince Siddhartha—a young boy sheltered from the evils of the world—who would one day venture beyond the walls of the royal palace, destined to become the Buddha. Another story drawn from the Jataka tales, stories of the Buddha’s past lives, reveals how as a young prince, he wielded five deadly weapons to combat a ferocious monster lurking deep inside a dark forest. In another tale about devotion to family, Buddha in the form of a golden deer gets caught in a trap, so its siblings come to its aid, refusing to leave its side even when a hunter comes along. Lê and Chau have created a delightfully heartwarming story that blends snatches of humor with moments that capture Binh’s hyperactive fascination with videogames. From serene images of nature to the digital world of Donkey Kong, he envisions himself floating through nebulous space in dynamically arranged panels. Events in the present unfold as Binh imagines taking part in adventures from the traditional tales, each one bearing a nugget of wisdom.
Structured in a semi-episodic style similar to the Arabian Nights, Enlighten Me paves an intriguing path into Buddhist philosophies, yet also weaves in themes of bullying, fitting in, self-control, community building, and finding oneself in the moment. This entertaining and thoughtful semiautobiographical graphic novel highlights a unique perspective on how one middle-schooler learns to navigate the challenges of life to find inner peace through self-disciplined mindfulness, thereby adding a culturally enriching experience to middle grade collections.
Enlighten Me Vol. By Minh Lê Art by Chan Chau Little, Brown, 2023 ISBN: 9780759555488
NFNT Age Recommendation: Middle Grade (7-11) Creator Representation: Vietnamese American, Character Representation: Vietnamese American,
Author and illustrator, Thien Pham, shares memories of his life framed around particular foods he remembers.
The book starts with a memory from when he was five years old on a small boat in the ocean fleeing Vietnam and encountering pirates. He remembers eating a rice ball his mother saved for him. His next memories come from his time in the refugee camp in Thailand when his mother purchased a banh cuon stall in order to support their family. After finally making it to America, Thien recalls his first American meal, steak and potatoes, as well as the luxury of fresh strawberries and potato chips. Life is hard for Thien’s family but they persevere together, opening their own café then converting it to a video rental store. Thien recalls attending an American school and reuniting with a friend he made at the refugee camp. The last few memories he shares are about the American disposition toward immigrants, especially the loud, angry messages, and his work to become a full American citizen with the support of his friends and family.
Sometimes words aren’t enough to convey all the emotions and meaning you want to share with others. This theme is prevalent throughout Family Style as Thien Pham’ excellent illustrations impart little things like the language barrier (word clouds full of lines and the occasional word that is recognized) or how tired his parents were so often. There were not very many bright colors used. Light seems to be used to show time of day. The muted colors serve to highlight and support the storytelling. Bright colors would have detracted from the serious tone used throughout. Personally, I find graphic memoirs more powerful than just words on a page or in audio form. It can be hard to imagine or picture someone else’s experiences from just words, so the illustrations express both the hardships and trauma as well as the triumphs and joys this family found together while pursuing the American dream.
The endnotes section contains a series of interviews and insights as the author answers some frequently asked questions like what his parents think of how he told the story and what they played with at the refugee camp. Although there are heavy topics introduced and discussed, I would recommend adding this to any graphic novel collection. It brings a perspective to light that not everyone has a chance to encounter in their everyday lives. The author keeps the illustrations pretty PG-13 and does show some violence on the page. The best use of this title would be for a parent to read it with their young ones and have discussions at the end of each memory/chapter.
Family Style: Memories of an American from Vietnam By Thien Pham Macmillan First Second, 2023 ISBN: 9781250809728
Publisher Age Rating: 14-18 NFNT Age Recommendation: Teen (13-16)
Creator Representation: Vietnamese American Character Representation: Vietnamese American
This is a book close to my storyteller’s heart highlighting the power of stories to transcend time and place while remaining relevant and personal. Initially, the protagonist Tien and Hien, his mother, listen to each other read folktales to gain language skills and deepen the strong ties between the immigrant mother and her American-born son. She struggles with English and he is not conversant in Vietnamese, but they both comprehend the tales they share. Interwoven with the tales are the very real bittersweet concerns of a mother homesick for Vietnam and the family members left behind and of her teenage son, Tien, who is searching for the precise words in Vietnamese to come out to his parents about his sexuality. The telling of the folktales, intertwined with the personal experience stories, exemplifies the alienation both characters are experiencing and the trials and challenges they must overcome along the way while illuminating the strong family bonds, love, and respect for each other.
The three folktales, the number so pertinent to the genre of western folklore, include two variants of the Cinderella tale type, a loose adaptation of the German variant “Allerleirauh” and “Ta’m Cam” from Vietnam, and The Little Mermaid by Hans Christian Andersen. They serve to emphasize both the universality of the archetypes and the cultural differences in the traditional tales as well as the innate visual interpretations of the listeners reflecting their own backgrounds and individual needs.
As the author explains in his after note, Tien would be most familiar with the western sensibilities of princess stories popularized by contemporary toys and cartoons reflecting the anachronistic visual details of these tales and these sensibilities are faithfully illustrated in this retelling. The second variant is told by his mother’s aunt on her visit to Vietnam upon the death of her mother. Here, the tale is reminiscent of French colonial elements in the building structures and clothing of the characters. The third tale is told to Tien by his mother, reflecting her visual memories of Vietnam, Hong Kong, and San Francisco. “The mermaid is a stand-in for Helen’s [Hien] experiences, a woman who wanted to escape to another world and manages to make it there at the cost of her ability to communicate. It is this underlying element of not being able to adequately communicate that ties the three folktales and the contemporary story together so successfully. Because the three tales are told with such care and detail, readers of the graphic novel share the stories along with the characters. Nguyen trusts the folklore to do their magic as they illuminate Tien’s struggle to come out to his mother and the unconditional love his mother has for him as she struggles to comprehend what he is trying to tell her. The contemporary story also amplifies the friendship and acceptance that Tien has from his school mates, if not the school administration. There is one dark segment when the teacher and priest’s guidance is detrimental to Tien’s well being, but this is eventually overcome as well.
The expansive retellings are delineated by the light purple backgrounds, while the sandy yellow background signifies Hien’s memories, and Tien’s contemporary 1998 experiences is rendered in tones of red. The black and white illustrations themselves are simple with clean lines and layout except for the marvelous clothes and buildings in the folktales themselves. Most of the illustrations were created digitally, a new, but ultimately successful, experience for Nguyen.
This quiet and reflective book also warms my librarian heart as it validates the effectiveness of libraries and books. It is a book that I raved about to Gina Gagliano, publishing director of Random House Graphic, in a personal conversation without realizing her robust contribution in bringing the book to fruition. I join in Nguyen in thanking her as this is a book I will be raving about in my university courses on comic books and on storytelling and with friends.
Highly recommended for readers of all ages of folktales and those who appreciate the values of compassion and human kindness.
The Magic Fish By Trung Le Nguyen ISBN: 9780593125298 Random House, 2020 Publisher Age Rating: 12 +
Title Details and Representation NFNT Age Recommendation: Teen (13-16) Character Traits: Vietnamese American, Queer Creator Highlights: Vietnamese American, Queer Related to…: Book to Comic
Tai Pham isn’t looking for trouble. He’s just living his life: helping in his beloved grandmother’s store, filling sketchbooks with drawings, and hanging out with his best friends. But sometimes, trouble finds him anyway, like when vandals target the store with thrown bricks and racist graffiti. Or when his grandmother passes away, and her jade ring starts following Tai around. It seems he’s been chosen to take over her role as a Green Lantern. But how can Tai become a member of a superpowered intergalactic peacekeeping force? He’s only thirteen!
The Green Lantern Corps is skeptical about bringing in a recruit so young. Still, they begin to train him, teaching him how to use his powers. But Tai has to keep up with his regular life, too. Which is how he and his two closest friends interview billionaire entrepreneur Xander Griffin. Why would a man like him take the time to talk to a group of kids working on a school project? Well, it turns out Xander Griffin knew Tai’s grandmother. What exactly was the connection? And what about Griffin’s plans to revitalize and remake Tai’s neighborhood? Should Tai be excited, or worried?
The story in Green Lantern: Legacy is fairly simple, as origin stories often are, especially when aimed at kids. However, it touches on some big themes: looking out for others, learning to trust and rely on your friends, and being willing to challenge authority when necessary. The story also spotlights the conflict that can arise between innovation and tradition. Will Tai support a top-down revamp of his neighborhood that could make it safer, but would also strip the citizens of their privacy and the community of its identity? Or will he follow in his grandmother’s footsteps, doing the hard, slow work to improve the neighborhood from the ground up?
Tai Pham is the first Asian-American Green Lantern, part of DC’s welcome diversification of the franchise. Minh Lê and Andie Tong have found many ways to naturally incorporate Tai’s Vietnamese-American identity into the story. His grandmother describes using her Green Lantern abilities to help her family and others safely come to America during wartime. Tai’s family encounters racism, as when vandals spray-paint the words “go home” on his grandmother’s store. Characters sometimes use Vietnamese terms, which are translated in a glossary at the end of the story. When he and his friends redesign his Green Lantern costume, the ever-artistic Tai adds some Vietnamese-style flair.
Familiarity with the Green Lantern franchise is not a requirement for enjoying this book, but will definitely offer readers some perks. For instance, Green Lantern fans will likely enjoy seeing popular character John Stewart helping to train Tai. The Phams even have a cat named Jordan, probably a shout-out to another well-known Lantern, Hal Jordan.
The art of Green Lantern: Legacy is bright, clear, and expressive. The characters are easy to tell apart, and the action scenes are easy to read visually. Colorist Sarah Stern uses a vibrant and varied color palette, and she excels at portraying all the glowing green energy and alien architecture that come up so often in a Green Lantern comic.
This is a rich, refreshing addition to DC’s new spate of graphic novels for kids and teens. (The end material of this book includes a sneak peek at another such book, Batman: Overdrive.) Hand it to fans of Super Sons and other kid-friendly superhero comics.
Green Lantern: Legacy By Minh Lê Art by Andie Tong ISBN: 9781401283551 DC Kids, 2020
Browse for more like this title NFNT Age Recommendation: Middle Grade (7-11), Tween (10-13) Character Traits: Vietnamese American Creator Highlights: Own Voices, BIPOC Creator
As an underwater Wizard of Oz, writer Amy Chu and illustrator Janet K. Lee’s new graphic novel, Sea Sirens, adds a modern twist to a classic tale. Inspired by L. Frank Baum’s The Sea Fairies, as well as Vietnamese folktales, the co-creators take readers on a fantastical adventure that unfolds within the ocean’s depths.
The story begins ordinarily enough as Trot, a headstrong Vietnamese-American girl enjoys a day of surfing with her one-eyed cat, Cap’n Bill, as her grandfather looks on. After her grandfather becomes confused and wanders off, Trot’s mother decides it is best for the trio to stay home while she is away at work. This does not stop Trot for long, as she soon sneaks back to the seaside with her cantankerous cat in tow. After a huge wave plunges them deep into the ocean, the two enter a magical world filled with kings and queens, extravagant feasts, dangerous wars and a colorful cast of characters led by sirens and their serpentine foes. Trot and Cap’n Bill soon become entangled in this wondrous kingdom, however the big question remains: will they ever be able to find their way back home?
Key in bringing this vivid oceanic world to life are the illustrations, which fill the pages with vibrant hues of blue, red, and orange. Fine lines, including a unique approach to shading faces, provide a breathtaking display that is both lively and engaging. Lee’s line work also provides contrast to the softness of the large swathes of watercolor, enhancing the visual aspects of this sensorial tale.
The only issue I have with the illustrations is a lack of character continuity from frame to frame, which becomes distracting at times. For example, Trot’s age and overall appearance are hard to grasp because of the inconsistencies in her face shape, physical features, and hair. On the other hand, Lee clearly excels at depicting animals and landscapes, which captivated me from page to detailed page.
Overall, I rate this book highly. It tackles tough issues like dealing with Alzheimer’s and growing up in a single-parent home. It also is refreshing to see a Vietnamese-American girl as the protagonist backed up by an ethnically diverse cast of characters. The cultural richness of the book also shines, with the inclusion of the Vietnamese language and flashbacks to grandfather’s life in Vietnam. In addition, the book is just plain fun, emphasizing the importance of family, friendship, and communication. With an open ending, I look forward to more adventures to come.
This book would work well as a read aloud for younger children or as an independent read for the middle grades.
Sea Sirens A Trot & Bill Adventure By Amy Chu Art by Janet Lee ISBN: 9780451480163 Viking, 2019 Publisher Age Rating: 8-12
Browse for more like this title Character Traits: Vietnamese
In her book Why Comics? Hillary Chute states flatly that the foundation of comics is in disaster—Spiegelman’s Holocaust, Jimmy Corrigan’s family, the destruction of Krypton. In Thi Bui’s graphic memoir, The Best We Could Do, disaster is foundational and unavoidable as well, but is also intensely personal. We can see that what the world sees as Disaster and History, individual families see as Life. An important addition to the graphic memoir genre, this book tells its story of birth, war, trauma, alienation, and love entirely in personal terms. It grounds the overwhelming in the relatable, making what could be an alien story universal, and salvaging a dark history with the insights that only close family can provide.
The Best We Could Do is a family memoir, describing how writer/artist Bui’s family came to the United States soon after the end of the Vietnam War. In the manner of Spiegelman’s Maus, this book tells Bui’s parents’ stories and intermingles their traumatic histories with Bui’s and her sisters’ life in America. Unlike Maus, this is not a sardonic and self-effacing graphic memoir. It is instead poetic, slow-moving, nuanced, and compassionate. There’s a sadness throughout, the kind of sorrow that comes from recognizing parents as human beings, and from hearing stories that we know we cannot fully understand.
Bui’s father, for example, starts out as an unsympathetic character—he could easily be dismissed as a man who accidentally terrorized his children and emotionally abandoned his wife. However, Bui understands her father as she explores his story, what he has survived and the damage it’s done to his thoughts and emotions. As Bui’s sympathy for and understanding of the man who raised her increases, so does our own. He is a man who faced betrayal throughout his childhood, had unlikely good fortune, but was surrounded by instability—his father was a con artist, his mother born into wealth. He got into politics and found himself on the losing side of a war, saw his mother thrown into the street to starve, and learned that his father—who thrived in the new Communist regime—would not stick his neck out to save his son or grandchild. After the crisis had passed, the traumas remained. By his own admission, even as an old man, Bui’s father will always be something of a wounded child. It’s a painful truth, one that allows Bui’s father to start to forgive himself for his shortcomings as a husband and father, and allows Bui to do the same.
Bui’s mother’s story unfolds with similar complexity and richness—a brilliant student, she attended a French language school and found her voice on the right side of history but the wrong side of political reality. Her life was changed by pregnancy and by war, and by the dissolution of the aristocratic reality she grew up in and learned to despise even as she relied on it. A quiet fighter, Bui’s mother has our sympathy from the start; it’s respect we gain for her rather than affection. Her own experiences left her afraid, unable to stay through her granddaughter’s delivery as it forces her to recall her own pregnancies, a child lost, a fear that lingers through the rest of her life.
2017 was a big year for Bui; she won the Caldecott Medal for her children’s book, A Different Pond, and released The Best We Could Do to critical acclaim. At 42 this is her first graphic novel, and like some other great graphic works—Charles Burns’ Black Hole, Spiegelman’s Maus—it has taken her more than a decade to complete, and the results are as polished as you might hope. Bui favors gorgeous inks, reminiscent of Chinese ink painting. Her characters are a blend of cartoonish realism, capable of creating the impression of an emotionally complex person—the joy in children’s faces, their parents’ haunted eyes—in just a few lines.
Furthermore, these cartoons are recognizable as portraits of real people, matched to photographs within the book. The book is colored only with shaded oranges and blues, giving the entire work the feel of a sepia-toned photo album, most of its details realistic with a few outrageous features, like a framed picture of a human skull resting behind barbed wire adorning a suburban home’s wall. This all comes together as a cohesive whole, beautiful and fragile and sad. Bui conveys a family’s journey that was heroic and imperfect, truly the best they could do. A personal but universal story, well told and brilliantly illuminated. If it has any shortcomings, it’s only in its relatively sparse use of humor, even for a genre not known for jokes. Even so, this book is an extraordinary accomplishment and is essential reading for fans of literary comics.
The Best We Could Do is appropriate for high school, public, and academic library collections. There is some nudity and implied violence that will probably keep it out of younger school libraries. Its blending of literary and artistic achievement with the history of Vietnam—poorly understood in the U.S. despite its importance to our own recent history—marks this as a major work of personal nonfiction, and Bui’s accomplishments as an artist and storyteller distinguish her as a major talent. Also, as a story about refugees, this graphic adds a badly needed human perspective to an often impersonal—and growing—international crisis that U.S. policy has placed itself at the center of. If you are thinking about adding this book to your collection, your timing couldn’t be better.
The Best We Could Do By Thi Bui ISBN: 9781419718786 Harry N. Abrams, 2017 Publisher Age Rating: (16+)
Browse for more like this title Character Traits: Vietnamese, Creator Highlights: Own Voices, BIPOC Creator
after fighting off a bully in school for having taunted his Vietnamese heritage. From award-winning author and graphic novelist Minh Lê (Drawn Together, Green Lantern: Legacy) and New York Times bestselling illustrator Chan Chau (Baby-Sitter’s Club) comes Enlighten Me, a coming-of-age story steeped in Buddhist traditions, history, and folklore.
Author and illustrator, Thien Pham, shares memories of his life framed around particular foods he remembers. 
This is a book close to my storyteller’s heart highlighting the power of stories to transcend time and place while remaining relevant and personal. Initially, the protagonist Tien and Hien, his mother, listen to each other read folktales to gain language skills and deepen the strong ties between the immigrant mother and her American-born son. She struggles with English and he is not conversant in Vietnamese, but they both comprehend the tales they share. Interwoven with the tales are the very real bittersweet concerns of a mother homesick for Vietnam and the family members left behind and of her teenage son, Tien, who is searching for the precise words in Vietnamese to come out to his parents about his sexuality. The telling of the folktales, intertwined with the personal experience stories, exemplifies the alienation both characters are experiencing and the trials and challenges they must overcome along the way while illuminating the strong family bonds, love, and respect for each other.
Tai Pham isn’t looking for trouble. He’s just living his life: helping in his beloved grandmother’s store, filling sketchbooks with drawings, and hanging out with his best friends. But sometimes, trouble finds him anyway, like when vandals target the store with thrown bricks and racist graffiti. Or when his grandmother passes away, and her jade ring starts following Tai around. It seems he’s been chosen to take over her role as a Green Lantern. But how can Tai become a member of a superpowered intergalactic peacekeeping force? He’s only thirteen!
As an underwater Wizard of Oz, writer Amy Chu and illustrator Janet K. Lee’s new graphic novel, Sea Sirens, adds a modern twist to a classic tale. Inspired by L. Frank Baum’s The Sea Fairies, as well as Vietnamese folktales, the co-creators take readers on a fantastical adventure that unfolds within the ocean’s depths.
In her book Why Comics? Hillary Chute states flatly that the foundation of comics is in disaster—Spiegelman’s Holocaust, Jimmy Corrigan’s family, the destruction of Krypton. In Thi Bui’s graphic memoir, The Best We Could Do, disaster is foundational and unavoidable as well, but is also intensely personal. We can see that what the world sees as Disaster and History, individual families see as Life. An important addition to the graphic memoir genre, this book tells its story of birth, war, trauma, alienation, and love entirely in personal terms. It grounds the overwhelming in the relatable, making what could be an alien story universal, and salvaging a dark history with the insights that only close family can provide.
