Jack Wong follows his 2023 Boston Globe-Horn Book Award-winning debut, When You Can Swim, with another empowering, exquisitely empathic picture book, The Words We Share. Angie and her father are immigrants who arrived in Canada speaking "just a tiny bit of English." Going to school enabled an easier linguistic transition for Angie while her father still speaks only in Cantonese. Angie must often be Dad's interpreter, ordering at restaurants and checking grocery labels "to make sure he doesn't buy pet shampoo by mistake."
Then Dad brings home another task requiring Angie's assistance--to make "special notices around his building" where he's a janitor. Dad dictates in Cantonese; Angie transcribes into English. So successful is their endeavor that Angie starts a signage service for other businesses like Ms. Fong's canteen and Ms. Lim's shoe repair. But when her work for Mr. Chu's laundromat goes awry, Angie will need her father's help to fix her mistakes.
Wong superbly illustrates his inviting story in a style strikingly different from that of When You Can Swim. His lines here are simple: thick, rough outlines, big marker strokes of color, and somewhat cartoon-like figures. Wong masterfully controls perspective, drawing Dad from above as he vacuums between empty cubicles at night, or looking out from inside a dark closet where Angie hides. The Words We Share is a heartwarming tribute to multigenerational immigrant tenacity--of the young child with mature responsibilities, the polyglot parent struggling to adapt, and the community supporting its members. Love proves understandable in every language. --Terry Hong