The paper boat / Thao Lam.
Material type:
TextPublisher: Toronto, ON ; Berkeley, CA : Owlkids Books, [2020]Copyright date: ©2020Description: 32 unnumbered pages : color illustrations ; 29 cmContent type: - text
- still image
- unmediated
- volume
- 9781771473637
- 1771473630
| Item type | Home library | Collection | Shelving location | Call number | Materials specified | Status | Date due | Barcode | Item holds | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Children's Book
|
Dr. James Carlson Library | Children's Picturebook | Tough Topics | LAM THAO | Available | 33111009785243 | ||||
|
Children's Book
|
Main Library | Children's Picturebook | Tough Topics | LAM THAO | Available | 33111010467161 |
Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:
Named a best picture book of 2020 by Kirkus , School Library Journal , Booklist , New York Public Library, the Globe and Mail , CBC, and the Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books -- a heartfelt and personal immigration story by critically acclaimed author Thao Lam
New from Thao Lam, the award-winning author of picture books My Cat Looks Like My Dad , Wallpaper , and Skunk on a String , comes a personal story inspired by her family's refugee journey.
In The Paper Boat , Thao's signature collage art tells the wordless story of one family's escape from Vietnam--a journey intertwined with an ant colony's parallel narrative.
At her home in Vietnam, a girl rescues ants from the sugar water set out to trap them. Later, when the girl's family flees war-torn Vietnam, ants lead them through the moonlit jungle to the boat that will take them to safety. Before boarding, the girl folds a paper boat from a bun wrapper and drops it into the water, and the ants climb on. Their perilous journey, besieged by punishing weather, predatory birds, and dehydration, before reaching a new beginning, mirrors the family's own.Impressionistic collages and a moving, Own Voices narrative make this a one-of-a-kind tale of courage, resilience, and hope.
"A refugee story."--Cover.
"Thao Lam's family came to Canada as refugees during the Vietnam War. When Thao started thinking about how to tell this story, she couldn't stop thinking about ants: small, seemingly insignificant creatures who are able to travel amazingly long distances overwater, work hard, and thrive on almost every continent on the planet. The Paper Boat starts with a story inspired by Thao's mother's life: a young girl watches as a bowl of sugar water is put out to attract (and get rid of) some pesky aunts. As the adults around her frantically make plans for escape, she dips her chopstick into the bowl to save the drowning insects. When the army arrives, the family must flee, and in the chaos, the girl and her mother become separated from the others, and get lost in the jungle. The mother gives the hungry girl a bun wrapped in paper, which she then folds into a paper boat. After they eat, the girl spots a trail of ants in the moonlight. They follow the insects to water and manage to meet up with the boat that will take them to safety. The story switches to the perspective of a family of ants who have boarded the paper boat. Their journey is full of peril. The sun is relentless, the ants are attacked by seagulls, they starve, a storm capsizes their boat, and many ants are lost. The survivors, however, cling to each other, creating a raft of their own bodies, eventually making it to shore. One ant ends up on a kitchen table, surrounded by food, much like the table from the first scene. But the family members around this table aren't quite the same. The grandmother is no longer there, the little girl has grown, and she's been joined by a baby sister. But they seem happy, and most importantly, they are safe. As the story ends, the reader zooms out to see that they are but one family in an apartment building full of families, in a busy city full of apartment buildings full of tiny, seemingly insignificant creatures, working hard and thriving. With this picture book, Thao is returning to an earlier format: the wordless picture book of sequential art. But she has pushed herself again with the artwork--and this story is a collage of simple shapes, clean geometry, and impressionistic washes of color. Its simplicity belies its great depth of feeling. This is a heartfelt, one-of-a-kind book on every level."-- Provided by publisher.