The Magic Fish

by Trung Le Nguyen

Paperback, 2020

Status

Checked out

Due 4/17/2024

Call number

PZ7.7 .N498 Mag 2020

Genres

LGBTQ+

Comics

Graphic Novels and Comics

Graphic Novels

Collection

LGBTQ Iowa Archives & LIbrary

Publication

Random House Graphic (2020), Edition: Illustrated, 256 pages

Description

"Real life isn't a fairytale. But Tié̂n still enjoys reading his favorite stories with his parents from the books he borrows from the local library. It's hard enough trying to communicate with your parents as a kid, but for Tié̂n, he doesn't even have the right words because his parents are struggling with their English. Is there a Vietnamese word for what he's going through? Is there a way to tell them he's gay?"--

User reviews

LibraryThing member jennybeast

Beautiful book with a lot packed in -- immigrant parents, language sharing, crushes and coming out and fairy tales and bereavement. All of that, and yet it's a quiet sort of book, with a quiet main character and a ton of heart. Beautifully drawn, beautiful visual storytelling. I'm not at all sure

why this is recommended for older kids -- there's nothing in it that I think would qualify it as YA aside from the intricacy of story. I suppose there is some very graphic violence, fairy tales being what they are. Love Tien's spectacular friends. Hate the faith counseling, not ok.

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LibraryThing member jothebookgirl

The art in this book is breathtaking.

Helen and Tiến are mother and son yet as many do, , they sometimes have trouble relating to one another. This is furthur complicated because they come from different worlds. Helen is a Vietnamese refugee who came to America as an adult, and Tiến was born

and raised in the United States.
After dinner, they take turns reading fairy tales to one another, a practice that originally began so that Helen could work on her English. By experiencing the events of the stories together, mother and son build up shared experiences.

This is Trung Le Nguyen’s extraordinary debut graphic novel, where the artist dramatizes the fairy tales that Helen and Tiến read within the narrative.
Nguyen’s story takes place in three different times and spaces, and the art incorporates the settings by using a different color, The present is in warm shades of red, the past in yellow and the fairy tales in purple, with a few exceptions, for example, the peaches or blood in a fairy tale, for example. These colors jump out as a result,

In the present, Helen feel a bit lost, as she struggles with feeling separated from her own ailing mother in Vietnam and works hard to earn enough money to return to visit her without sacrificing any element of the life she helped build for Tiến.

Tiến, meanwhile, has a crush on the boy in his little circle of friends at a private Christian school, and he struggles with if or how to come out to his parents, as he doesn’t even know if there is a word for “gay” in Vietnamese.

The first fairy tale is...
“Tattercoats,” a Cinderella version that prominently features the attendance at balls. During the telling Helen is sewing patches on Tiến’s coat, and of he and his friends preparing for a school dance.

The other stories are a Vietnamese version of Cinderella and Hans Christian Andersen’s “The Little Mermaid,” the latter of which is presented here as a story of a frowned-upon relationship (“My sweet child, this is transgressive,” the sea witch tells the little mermaid when she learns of her love for a mortal),

This is a compelling and fascinating book!

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LibraryThing member krau0098

Series Info/Source: This is a stand alone book that I got as a gift for Christmas.

Story (5/5): Tien loves his family and friends but is struggling with how to tell them he is gay. Through a series of fairy tales and vignettes from his mother’s past, Tien and his family both learn a lot more about

each other and eventually figure out how to talk to each other. The fairy tales woven in here were amazing; both traditional European and Vietnamese fairy tales. The way these fairy tales are shown to be similar across cultures and the way these fairy tales reflected themselves in Tien’s mother’s past was amazingly well done.

Characters (5/5): The characters in here are complex and engaging and exceedingly well done. They are all caring and kind and have so many layers of history to them.

Setting (5/5): While much of this book takes place in Tien's house and school, we also get to journey to amazing far-off fairy tale lands and to Vietnam.

Writing/Drawing Style (5/5): I really can’t say enough about how amazingly well this was all put together. This book looks at so many issues and does it so well. There is discussion around the implication of immigration and also speculation about how similar fairy tales are across different cultures. There is a lot about friendship and love (both old and new) and, of course, the issue of Tien trying to come out in a culture that doesn’t even have a word for that. The way all of these events were reflected in and woven throughout these beautiful fairy tales was amazing.

I have to also discuss the illustration in here, oh my goodness it was soooo beautiful. The fairy tales especially are elaborately drawn and just absolutely stunning. I just stared at them in awe every time I got to them. It’s all very well drawn and easy to follow, but the detail in the fairy tale parts was especially impressive.

My Summary (5/5): Overall I came into this expecting a lot and it still blew me away, it was so well done. This is such an amazing story that has so many layers to it and is woven together so well. In addition to that the illustration and artwork is just absolutely stunning. This is one I would recommend everyone read, it just had so much impact on me and I loved it so much. I will definitely be keeping my eye out for more books from Nguyen in the future.

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LibraryThing member bibliovermis

It took me a little while to get into this, and to understand the interplay between the story of a family caught between shifting cultures, centered on mother and son, and the fairy tales they read to each other as a method of bringing cohesion to their cultural references. But I absolutely loved

it.

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LibraryThing member LibrarianRyan

I could not get into this. I don’t know if it was the monochrome illustrations or the story line. Just not my thing, however I can think of a few library patrons who will like it.

LibraryThing member villemezbrown

A Vietnamese American family in the 1990s tells fairy tales to each other to practice their English, but the tales have parallels to the daily struggles in their life, especially for the 13-year-old son boy coming to terms with his sexual identity and fighting the fear he feels when he thinks of

telling his parents.

The fairy tales are so well told and illustrated that they actually distracted from the main story and sometimes failed to fully connect with it. And as fairy tales are wont to do, they get pretty macabre and gory.

Between the boy's story, the mom's own storyline regarding her mother, and the fairy tales, the book feels overstuffed. But even if all the elements do not totally jell, the book is beautiful and engaging.

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LibraryThing member Salsabrarian

Every night Tiến reads fairy tales to his mother to help her with her English. The Cinderella and Little Mermaid tales weave in among Tiến's and his mother's stories: Tiến is gay but hasn't come out to his parents because he doesn't know the Vietnamese words to express himself. Hiến, his

mother, was a refugee; now, back home, her mother is ailing and she longs to go back and see her again. The fairy tales' transformation themes echo the transformative and loving shift in relationship between mother and son. An enchanted and grounded work.

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LibraryThing member Jazz1987

I really enjoyed this graphic novel, The Magic Fish by Trung Le Nguyen, both in reading and in his drawing style. Nguyen's art style, to me, had this art deco feel with similarities to W. W. Denslow and amazing sense of fashion throughout the comic. Story wise, I liked the Vietnamese culture; the

mother and son relationship; the realistic struggles of coming out gay in the 1990s along with the secret crush that goes nowhere other than a platonic friendship; and the frame-story element from the real world, flashbacks, and the fairy tale worlds.

I highly recommend this to any young or old reader who enjoys cultural stories, immigration stories, positive LGBT stories, fairy tales, and/or parent/child relationships.

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LibraryThing member acargile

Three stars? Yes--this is a really well done, clever graphic novel. I just didn't find it entertaining. It's purpose is very literary and it succeeds very well.

The gist is that fables are the tales that pull us together and help us copy with life.

LibraryThing member fionaanne

I'm loving the notion that the stories we tell change to suit our needs but not enthused by the artwork.

LibraryThing member xaverie

Wow. What a marvel The Magic Fish is; beautiful and poignant, it hits a perfect sweet spot of being suitable for children and teens as well as adults.

The central story is about Tiền, a 13 year old Vietnamese-American boy, who reads fairy tales with his mother. It's a lovely personal tradition

that really shows the warmth between mother and son.

The story alternates between the present with Tiền, illustrated in shades of red; interspersed with the fairy tales they read together in blues and violets; and finally, there are flashbacks to Tiền's parents leaving Vietnam, in yellow. It's a simple conceit that makes it easy to follow the story without getting confused between the stories.

Trung Le Nguyen's art is gorgeous. It's simultaneously simple and complex, childlike and mature. The detail on the character's hair is particularly gorgeous.

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LibraryThing member greeniezona

I'd heard so many good things about this that I had to go check it out when I saw it at the library. All of its praise is deserved. A magical read with beautiful illustrations -- about immigration and language and faerie tales and identity and clothing and coming out. Especially love the Vietnamese

faerie tales -- the similarities and differences with the Western tales I grew up with are fascinating.

A treasure of a book.

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LibraryThing member librarianlion

Set in the late nineties, Tien reads fairy tales from the library with his Vietnamese immigrant parents to help them learn English. Tien wants to come out to his parents but does not know the words in Vietnamese.

This is a beautifully illustrated graphic novel that delves into the generational

trauma that comes with immigrating to a new continent. The art is a major aspect of the storytelling. The book emphasizes shared folklore stories while embracing cultural differences and nuance. This book both is and isn't a coming out story- it felt more like the main conflict of the story was bridging the cultural gap between Tien and his mother’s worlds.

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LibraryThing member MaowangVater

Thirteen-year-old Tién reads fairy tales aloud in English to his mother, so she can improve her English. As an immigrant, she still speaks mostly Vietnamese. In his home, Tién and his mother and father speak a mixture of English and Vietnamese, but at school it’s all English, so Tién is the

most fluent in English, and less so in Vietnamese.

The traditional folktales and literary fairy tales from Europe and Asia that he reads have bold plots, vivid stereotypical character types, and dramatic endings, sometimes happy, and sometimes tragic. Their characters act decisively. Tién finds his real life more complicated and fraught. Language differences don’t help. He wishes that he knew the Vietnamese words to tell his parents that he has a crush on one of his two best friends, the one who is a boy. He hears his mother speaking in anxious tones to her mother back in Vietnam, but he can’t really understand what’s going on between them. Then just when he gets up the courage to talk to her, his mother receives a shocking phone call, and announces that she’s flying back to Vietnam immediately.

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