The rich color palette highlights both the layers within each panel as well as serving as a road map for readers by indicating whether the panels are set in the present, the past, or within the fairy tale. Le Nguyen’s gorgeous, flowing, detailed illustrations deftly weave Vietnamese and Western fairy-tale worlds together with Hiền’s memory of her past and Tiến’s struggle over coming out. As he reads the story of love, longing, and travel across a sea, Hiền is reminded of family she left behind in Vietnam while Tiến tries to navigate his own first love, a boy he is friends with. When Tiến selects “Tattercoats,” his seamstress mother tells him that there is a Vietnamese version that her own mother told her, long ago. Tiến’s mom, Hiền, asks him to read aloud the fairy tales he checks out from the library they both love them, and she can use them to practice English. While Tiến is fluent in English, his Vietnamese refugee parents are not, leaving them struggling at times for a shared language.
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