This book stars 12-year old Tiến Phong who reads stories with his mother, Hiến, to help improve her English. The stories they share together are often put in juxtaposition to Hiến’s memories of leaving Vietnam as a refugee or to Tiến’s experience in figuring out his sexuality. The duo used stories to connect and to share what they couldn’t really put into words themselves. The illustrations were just lovely and really helped convey the beauty of the stories. I loved that the illustrations tended to be one colour, such as all purple or all red, but still conveyed depth through slightly different hues. Some of the fairytales, such as Hans Christian Andersen’s version of “The Little Mermaid”, may be familiar to readers but since I am not a huge fairytale reader, I found the stories all new and exciting. The illustrations were not only beautiful, but the words in the fairytales were also really well-written as well.
