This is a beautiful graphic novel dealing with culture and identity that seamlessly blends in fairy tales and folktales into the story. The panel work is absolutely breathtaking.

The illustrations in this story are beautiful and Tien's story is one all will be able to understand. His struggle to communicate who he is and to communicate with his family are experiences all readers can empathize with when it comes to growing up. This is a great tale to share with all young readers!

Wow. This book was stunning. Retellings of Vietnamese folktales combined with beautifully color blocked illustrations brought Tiến's story to life. This is a book about struggle, about family dynamics, generational trauma and history, about queerness and acceptance. I can't wait to see what Trung Le Nguyen does next.

What a phenomenal and gorgeous graphic novel about identity. The fairy tale aspects were fantastic and weaved in so well with the modern storyline.

This is a great graphic novel for students! Tien is a very relatable character who became a quick class favorite. I enjoy how his voice added to our class.

Review originally posted in the APLS Yakety YAK e-newsletter for Youth Services Librarians in the AL listserv:

Title: The Magic Fish

Author: Trung Le Nguyen

Release Date: October 13th, 2020

Language grows from culture and culture is reflected in its language. It is a beautiful connection, but for the children of 1st generation immigrants it can lead to difficulties communicating. How do you explain something in your parents’ native tongue when you don’t even know the words?

Tiến treasures his family’s tradition of reading fairytales to one another in the evenings. Not only does it build vocabulary, but it is a time for connection and understanding when he doesn’t always know how to otherwise communicate. Right now he’s struggling with whether and how to explain that he is gay, especially without the right words to use. Maybe it’s better to wait. His grandmother is sick and while he’s never met her, his mother is stressed and he doesn’t want to add to her worries.

This is a beautifully woven graphic novel. Sometimes graphic novels struggle with properly conveying a character’s thoughts. It can be like watching a movie where the story relies purely on the viewer interpreting the story on what characters say and do, not what they think. Even if it is stylistically appealing, there can be a certain lack of depth to a character if what they are thinking or feeling isn’t adequately portrayed. Graphic novels need a proficiency in weaving together words and artwork. Trung Le Nguyen delivers, silently and subtly conveying pieces of a story you wouldn’t otherwise know. Each panel in The Magic Fish is line work with a selective use of colors, contrasting colors added infrequently as important highlights. Present day is shaded in soft reds while fairy tales are bluish-purple. Past memories use yellowish-browns. When Tiến is telling a fairy tale where the daughter has to leave home to escape, there’s a sudden color change and you see the mother remembering saying goodbye to her family, hiding from soldiers, or crossing the ocean in a small crowded boat. The look of each fairy tale is reliant upon the identity of the main story-teller, depending on their life experiences. The way the different stories are twisted together, the way different views are conveyed practically simultaneously without getting confusing is stunningly simple but profound.

Beyond the masterful use of art, I love the themes in this book. It’s a story that celebrates love and connection, the universal ability of stories to communicate between cultures. How stories change and evolve, depending on who’s telling the story and who’s listening. Stories are organic. In the book, the mother asks, “Is that really the ending?”

Her aunt replies, “How should I know? It’s an old story. Details change. Things change. And now this story is ours. Yours and mine.”

Reading The Magic Fish I ached for Tiến and his mother. Each wanting to talk to the other, but not knowing how to communicate. “My Vietnamese is weakening,” his mother says to her aunt, “every day. I’m changing. My past and present selves speak two different languages. It feels like I died on that boat. And I’m still stuck in the middle of the ocean. Far away from my mother…and far away from my son.”

I love this book. I want to read it again, having read the author’s notes in the end. I want to look for things I missed the first time. Will it be universally appealing? Sometimes getting a teen to just pick up and crack open a book is a challenge – the cover art isn’t what I would call ‘exciting’ even if it’s pretty. I doubt it’s going to be a bestseller. Stories don’t need to be the next biggest hit though. Sometimes you need stories for the individual. And I think for those who give it a chance, the stories it tells are important and influential.

Recommended for: fans of graphic novels, fairy tales, realistic fiction.

Things to watch out for: It’s fairy tales, so lots of extra warnings! Cannibalism. A parent who bargained away his future child, mentioned spousal abuse, abuse from step family, murder, a type of self harm (the little mermaid dancing repeatedly to impress her love interest despite it feeling like dancing on knives), and promoting murder to get out of a contract. In the ‘main’ story, there’s off screen character death of the mother’s father and later mother. In the past, Tiến’s father is taken away to a camp for ‘reeducation’ and sent back when he’s too weak. Tiến dances with his crush at a school dance and the teacher reports it to the school’s priest. He has a talk with Tiến and upon hearing Tiến doesn’t know the words for it in Vietamese, the priest says, “What a blessing. All the parents I’ve counseled described the heartbreak of their children coming out the same way. It always feels like a death in the family.” The school schedules a conference with his mom and outs him to his mother.

A teen struggles to come out to his Vietnamese immigrant parents, due to language and cultural barriers. But their shared love of fairy tales helps them bond and reveal their true selves. It's a beautiful testament to the power of storytelling with gorgeous illustrations as well!

An immigrant story, with out feeling like an "issue" story. Told from the perspective of 11 year old and his mom, while weaving fairytales throughout. Beautiful artwork and well told.

Tién is struggling to bridge the gap between English and Vietnamese in order to come out to his family. This book is beautiful and full of themes about magic, the bond of family, becoming your true self. This book is perfect to gift to young middle school students or to have in a school library. The illustrations are also very beautiful!

Excellent graphic novel memoir that covers immigration and LGBTQ+. Hand to readers who enjoyed They Called Us Enemy and Spinning.

The book is absolutely beautiful - in art, in story, in format, in coloring, everything. A boy and his mother bond over the shared reading of faerie tales seems like a simple idea, but when you weave in a story about immigration, family, and queerness, this becomes so much more complex. The faerie tales are elegantly woven in, reflecting the real life events occurring to the main characters. Choosing to color panels based on which story they were apart of made it easy to follow and not get confused from going back and forth between faerie tale, the mother's story, and the son's. I loved this from beginning to end and cried more than once in joy.

I've already recommended and read this book with a book club, and it will also be included on the November 2021 staff favorites list on our website.

I love this graphic novel! Both the story and the illustrations are gorgeous! I always recommend it to anyone looking for a beautiful, heartfelt graphic novel, both kids and adults.

The Magic Fish has multiple focuses: Tien trying to figure out how to tell his mother that he is gay, and his mother dealing with having escaped Vietnam. The story is told well, weaving several as pests into one connected story. The illustrations in this graphic novel are absolutely incredible! I love the different color palettes to differentiate between the different parts of the story - past, present, and fairy tale.

An absolutely beautiful graphic novel that was somewhat confusing at times but had wonderful characters and a stunning story that was supported by amazing art.

Such a beautiful story of a boy who doesn't know how to tell his mother one of the most important things about himself. They are connected by fairy tales and she uses a final story to let him know how much she loves him. The art in this title is muted but stunning. The fact that Tien has supportive people in his life is a refreshing view of the coming out story.

Full disclosure, I was predestined to love this book because I have been following Trung Le Nguyen's work online for years--his line work is always breathtaking and the creativity and magic of his pieces is captivating. So when I found out he was illustrating an original graphic novel, obviously I got my hands on it as soon as possible.

And just like his line work, The Magic Fish is delicate and entrancing storytelling, marrying visuals and words with ease. The illustrations are evocative and emotive, combining the myths and folk tales of the mother with the harsh reality of immigrant life for mother and son. If you are a fan of graphic novels and good storytelling, you cannot miss this book!

The Magic Fish was amazing coming of age LGBTQ graphic novel revolved around Vietnamese-American middle grade kid and his mother. The story was about communication gap because of language barrier, immigration, family, love, hope, grief, gender identity, coming out to parents, and importance of stories.

I loved the first line- “They say we’re meant to go from here to there, but so much happens between those two places.”

It started with Tiến mother talking about language how his mother, Helen, wanted them speak the same language as she speaks Vietnamese while Tiến speaks English so they made a habit of reading library book everyday after dinner. It was hard for them to communicate about their feelings with each other. Tiến didn’t know how to tell his parents he was gay as he didn’t know the Vietnamese word for it.

It was amazing to read how they discussed hard topics through the stories they read and found the right balance that was love.

Everything in this book was perfect. Author packed so much emotions both in words and expression of characters in this short story. I loved characters.

Tiến was lovely and I loved how he cared for his parents, read stories, and discussed and expressed things through it. His feeling for not able to coming out to his parents fearing he might mess it up was realistic and touching. I felt for him for what happened after the dance, and how he had to face teacher’s homophobia. His frustration was genuine.

His friendship with Clare and Julian was great. I loved how they both supported him and how Julian understood his feelings.

This wasn’t just about Tiến but also about Helen’s struggle as immigrant, how hard it was to leave her own country and family to have safety and future in other country and what it cost her. Her loss, grief, guilt, how she felt stuck in-between because of the change from of her past and present, and for Tiến not able to tell her things was heartfelt. I loved how she talked about it and how she let Tiến know about her feelings after knowing he was gay.

It was awe-inspiring how author interwoven Tiến and Helen’s story with three fairy tales– the German Allerleirauh, Vietnamese Tam Cam (2 relative Cinderella tales), and Little Mermaid.

After reading Allerleirauh, I realised part of that tale was also in Spin The Dawn book and I haven’t read that original one until mentioned in this book. The Vietnamese tam cam was gory and dark. Little Mermaid was amazing. The twist given to all three tales perfectly complimented to Tiến and Helene’s story.

Art was beautiful. I loved how colour segments changed for present, past, memories, and fairy tales which made it easy to identify the change and made transition smooth. The expressions of characters, all other deatils were amazing. I loved the dresses in all three fairy tales. I enjoyed reading author’s inspiration for those dresses, this story, and bonus art in the end.

Overall, The Magic Fish was simply beautiful teen/YA graphic novel that packed many layers and stunning artwork. If you love graphic novels, diverse story, story about immigrant and coming out to parents, I highly recommend this.

2021 Maverick List. This beautiful graphic novel shows how a boy uses fairytales to connect to his parents that speak Vietnamese and struggle with English. The main character Tien is also struggling how how to tell his parents he is gay especially since there is no word in their language for it. Heart warming story that intertwines fairytales into their families life.

Spectacularly magical story about a mother and son figuring out how to communicate to one another. I LOVED the illustrations and color palette that show us the difference between Tien's present day, his mother's memories, and the fairytales. This is an acceptance story to get swept away in.

I also loved the retelling of the fairytales in the story. Though dark at times, they were intriguing and inquisitive. What a great thread to bond the family over and create their own story together.

Absolutely beautiful graphic novel. The use of color to tell the present story, the mother's story, and the fairytales is subtle and beautiful. There is stippling and highly detailed art. The story deftly weaves how fairytales help a gay son and his immigrant mother from Vietnam understand each other. It uses the fairytales to avoid cliches about immigration and a coming out story.