The Magic Fish by Trung Le Nguyen is a graphic novel that will capture the interest of any
reader. Growing up in the 1990s as the son of Vietnamese immigrants living in the Midwest, Tiến’s
life is much different than his mother’s. Besides the everyday language barrier--her first language is
Vietnamese and she’s struggling to learn English, whereas Tiến primarily learned English growing
up--Tiến can’t find the words to come out to her in Vietnamese. So when it’s hard to figure out what
to say in words, they communicate using fairy tales. Weaving together fairy tales as a sort of alternate
world to the one in which Tiến and his family and friends are living, Nguyen tells his own tale of how
Tiến learns to express himself in a language that he and his parents can understand.
One of the best parts of the graphic novel is Nguyen’s incredibly clever use of symbolism
between Tiến’s world and the world of fiction and fantasy. Every fable is introduced at a specific
point relevant to the plot of Tiến’s life and is not only parallel to but also intertwined with Tiến’s
world; the different colors of the graphics designated to the present, past, and fiction also provide a
meaningful way to show the connections and relationships between all of these worlds.
The Magic Fish addresses important topics like personal identities and the struggles of immigrants, but it also
introduces them in a way that allows all readers to empathize with the protagonists. I am so glad I
picked it up!