  | Different pond Author: Phi, Bao | |
| Price: $17.81 | ||
Summary:
As a young boy, Bao Phi awoke early, hours before his father's long workday began, to fish on the shores of a small pond in Minneapolis. Unlike many other anglers, Bao and his father fished for food, not recreation. Between hope-filled casts, Bao's father told him about a different pond in their homeland of Vietnam.
| Illustrator: | Bui, Thi |
Download a Teacher's Guide| Accelerated Reader Information: Interest Level: LG Reading Level: 3.10 Points: .5 Quiz: 190082 | Reading Counts Information: Interest Level: 3-5 Reading Level: 3.50 Points: 3.0 Quiz: 71759 | |
Awards:
Caldecott Honor, 2018
Reviews:
School Library Journal (+) (00/08/17)
Full Text Reviews:
Booklist - 07/01/2017 *Starred Review* Before dawn, a Vietnamese American man and his young son set out to fish for their supper in a nearby lake. As they travel the lamp-lit streets, build a small fire, and drop their hook into the water, the little boy contemplates his parents’ lives, the everyday task of fishing for their supper, and the stories they’ve told him about living in Vietnam before coming to America as refugees. Phi’s bittersweet story of the resourcefulness of an immigrant family is lovingly illustrated in Bui’s evocative artwork. Her expressive ink-black brushstrokes stand out against a background of star-speckled, crepuscular blues, and at poignant moments in Phi’s story, she movingly homes in on the facial expressions of the boy and his father. While the story occasionally hints at painful things, the gravity of those events is depicted in the emotional reactions of the characters in the present, rather than images of war in the past. The boy’s father has fond memories of Vietnam, heartbreak for the people he lost in the war, and gratitude for the opportunities afforded to him in the U.S., all of which the boy silently internalizes into both appreciation for his life and curiosity about a place he’s never been. This wistful, beautifully illustrated story will resonate not only with immigrant families but any family that has faced struggle. - Copyright 2017 Booklist.
School Library Journal - 08/01/2017 K-Gr 2—This gorgeous tale about a father/son fishing trip shows the interconnectedness of family and the inexorable way that generational history impacts the present. The story is told from the boy's perspective, as his father wakes him long before dawn to go fishing. Although the child enjoys the outing as a special adventure with his dad, they are fishing for food, not sport, and they must be home in time for the father to leave for work. The quiet time together provides opportunities for the man to talk about his past life fishing with his brother in a different pond in Vietnam, long ago before the war and before coming to America. After they return home, triumphant, with a bucket of fish, the boy contemplates his role as the youngest in the family—no longer a baby—and even though he is sad that both his parents have to work, he knows there will be a happy, love-filled family dinner later that night. Bui's cinematic illustrations make use of panels and weighted lines, evoking the perfect background or facial expression for each piece of text. The text placement and composition of the illustrations allow each occurrence or observation to be its own distinct event, stringing together the small, discrete moments that make up a life, a memory, and a history into a cohesive whole. VERDICT This gentle coming-of-age story is filled with loving, important aspects of the immigrant experience and is a first purchase for all libraries.—Anna Haase Krueger, Ramsey County Library, MN - Copyright 2017 Publishers Weekly, Library Journal and/or School Library Journal used with permission.
