Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

Grandma and Felix

Words Between Us by Angela Pham Krans

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When I first saw Words Between Us as an online reader copy and noticed the cover, it made me assume that this was going to be a grandparent/grandchild story and one where their language difficulties would cause problems. However, I was mostly right. This was a grandmother and grandson story, but they are able to speak to each other (both speak Vietnamese). They have a tight and special bond as time goes by and the two of them learn about each other. However, the grandmother […]

We’re all the same to them

The Refugees by Viet Thanh Nguyen

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“Yours is a lucky generation.” “I wouldn’t say we were so lucky,” Phuong said. “You’ve never appreciated what you have.” Her father waved his hand over the meal and Phuong squeezed her glass, bracing to hear the stories of her parents one more time. ……. “Phuong was bemused at how these tourists would want to spend their money and their day here, instead of at the beach, or at a fancy restaurant, or in a hammock at a rustic riverside café. The reason for such […]

Sweet but not sappy

The Yellow Ao Dai by Hanh Bui

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I was thinking that The Yellow Ao Dai was going to be super sappy. The cover is cute and sweet looking, and the main character is a young child. The subject felt as if it was going to be a “feel good tale.” And it is but all that, but it is more, too. It is a feel-good story, but there is some meat with those potatoes. We follow a young Vietnamese girl excited to share part of her culture with her class, but her […]

Heartwrenching and So Good

The Best We Could Do by Thi Bui

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Bingo: Heart (themes of familial love) What a lovely book. The Best We Could Do is a graphic novel by Thi Bui. It’s a story about her family. It starts with Thi giving birth to her son, and as she comes to terms with becoming a mother, she finds herself thinking about her relationships with her own parents and her childhood. From there, she explores her parents’ childhoods, how they met, their life in Viet Nam prior to and during the war, and their escape to the […]

Bitter, Sweet, Love, Family

Hundred Years of Happiness by Thanhha Lai

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I had many emotions and thoughts while reading Hundred Years of Happiness. I was wondering the nationality of the family (you learn Vietnamese) as I was curious where the food came from and where the traditional represented (colors are important to cultures and I was wondering why white was not used).  Then, I would become emotional as I realized this is not really a happy story, but a bittersweet one about the love of a grandchild and grandparents. And where one grandparent, the grandmother, is […]

So Lovely

The Magic Fish by Trung Le Nguyen

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The Magic Fish is an absolutely beautiful graphic novel–both the pictures and the story itself. It’s the story of a boy, Tiến, whose been keeping a secret from his friends and family. Tiến’s parents emigrated to the U.S. from Vietnam. His parents are working on improving their English, and so every night he reads fairy tales with his mother. Meanwhile, he tries to figure out how to cross the language barrier to tell his parents that he’s gay. To help his mother with her English, she […]



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