NAVIGATING NIGHT

A child gains poignant insight about family while making Chinese takeout deliveries.

“Baba and I—we navigate it together,” the young, East Asian–presenting narrator explains as father and child “shuttle cardboard trays full of takeout containers from [their] restaurant to the minivan.” While Baba drives, the child wields a notebook of addresses, a foldout map, and a red pen to ensure the orders reach their hungry clients. Despite compliments—“What a good kid you are”—the protagonist would rather be “a normal kid” instead of Baba’s helper. But it’s in the darkness that Baba divulges faraway stories of “empty stomachs and worried whispers,” of “find[ing] his way in a new country.” He confesses, “Before I had you, I would get so lost.” Returning safely to the restaurant means a warm family meal to share. In an author’s note, Leung describes the inspiration for the work: making food deliveries with her own father in the 1990s. Particularly resonant is her observation about the children of immigrants who must often become their parents’ translators, advocates, and navigators. In an illustrator’s note, Kang reveals her own family’s inspiration and how she uses weather—a dark downpour, its dissipation, parting clouds giving way to the shining moon—to affectingly reflect the shifting parent–child relationship. She creates her gorgeous, moody illustrations in gouache, crayon, colored pencil, and pastel. Mature themes concerning immigration, identity, and belonging suggest that older readers might especially appreciate this work.

An impressively realistic, heartfelt exploration of family dynamics and illuminating understanding.