Take a closer look at the powerful themes of this year’s citywide National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) Big Read. Explore the topics of cultural identity, migration, and family with our micro branches and events.
Meet us at the Stetson Branch on Wednesday, April 3, from 5:30-7:30 pm for activities, grab your complimentary copy of the book, and mingle with our partners. It’s an evening of community, literature, and camaraderie!
Source: thibui.com
The Best We Could Do is an illustrated memoir by Thi Bui about the search for a better future while longing for the past.
Exploring the anguish of immigration and the lasting effects that displacement has on a child and her family, Bui documents the story of her family’s daring escape after the fall of South Vietnam in the 1970s, and the difficulties they faced building new lives for themselves.
While adjusting to life as a first-time mother, Bui ultimately discovers what it means to be a parent—the endless sacrifices, the unnoticed gestures, and the depths of unspoken love. Despite how impossible it seems to take on the simultaneous roles of both parent and child, she pushes through. With haunting, poetic writing and breathtaking art, she examines the strength of family, the importance of identity, and the meaning of home.
The Best We Could explores themes of displacement, migration, cultural identity, family, history and intergenerational healing. Through book discussions, film, storytelling, conversation, visual and performance art the International Festival of Arts & Ideas along with its partners will create interactive and thought-provoking programming.
Thi Bui was born in Vietnam and came to the United States in 1978 as part of the “boat people” wave of refugees fleeing Southeast Asia at the end of the Vietnam War. Her short comics can be found online at The Nib, PEN America, and BOOM California. She is currently researching and drawing a work of graphic nonfiction about immigrant detention and deportation, to be published by One World, Random House.
You can check out a copy of The Best We Could Do in person at one of our library locations or through the Hoopla app as an e-book.
If you are looking to read books with related subjects, be sure to check out our micro branches. Click the links below to discover titles that can be checked out in person or a selection of e-books available online 24/7.
Access additional resources provided by the National Endowment for the Arts here.
Young Minds and Teen Picks
Our Young Minds micro branch includes a selection of books for children and teens that dive into the themes of immigration and finding home.
Finding Papa by Angela Pham Krans and illustrated by Thi Bui is this year’s companion read. It is a picture book based on the author’s own experience which follows young Mai and her mother’s perilous journey from Vietnam to America to find Papa—who left ahead of them to start a better life for their family.
You can borrow Finding Papa in-person.
Events at NHFPL
Wednesday, April 3 at 5:30 pm | Stetson Branch
Join us for our 2024 NEA Big Read Kick Off celebrating Thi Bui’s The Best We Could Do! Meet us at the Stetson Branch Library for activities, grab your complimentary copy of the book, and mingle with our partners. It’s an evening of community, literature, and camaraderie!
Don’t Miss any of the NEA Big Read Events Happening Across New Haven!
Be sure to check out the Arts & Ideas website for a calendar of the NEA Big Read events relating to The Best We Could Do happening from April to June! The NEA Big Read is a program of the National Endowment for the Arts in partnership with Arts Midwest.
