Young Vo

What's it like to start school when you don't know the language everyone else is speaking? Through clever visual storytelling, Young Vo gives the reader the experience. I loved seeing the juxtaposition of the two art styles, and how the book evolves as Dat's understanding does. At first, all the unfamiliar environment, including the people, objects, and landscapes, are cartoonish, in black and white and reminiscent of toons from the 20s & 30s. Dat and his world are drawn in color, much more show more realistically. But as his understanding grows, the art shifts, which is especially poignant as the friendly girl Julie's face changes. The message that being friendly can help someone even if you don't know their language is invaluable.
Best used with older kids, this would be a great one for the classroom. Using the same page that unlocks Dat's understanding of English words as a start of their key, kids can decode all of the "gibberish" in the book, including the front and back covers. show less

This story book was fun to read. Gibberish uses playful, expressive visuals to portray the isolation and confusion of being new to a language and culture. As the main character’s world slowly transforms from nonsensical symbols to meaningful connection, readers witness the power of empathy and friendship. It’s a brilliant and accessible story about finding your voice in a new place.

Pure, dead, brilliant.

This was face out on the New shelf and I grabbed it because great cover. There was a book, so, yes, and maybe it was about some reading disability, whatever.

It has custom endpapers, which at the front are little icons of mostly common things easily understood by most North American kids. Mostly Gears, musical notes, flower, is that a house, lock, clover, branch, fire, if that one is fire, is this a crown? The title word is broken into three syllables, as on the front show more cover, but also spread onto three rows.

The next spread shows a simple tropical island with an adult woman and child looking to the right, over the ocean, under the sun. The sky is blue and white. There's a fish in the ocean and a teapot. At the far right is a small sail boat with a woman and a child. The scene darkens in swathes from left to right, with stars appearing. The next spread darkens further in bands, the blue oceans becoming grey, a rubber duck and periscope amid the waves, more stars, a crescent moon, and a passenger plane. The grey scene with stars clouds and hills or fog becomes a street with a house and a city skyline in the background, a silly cartoonish bus with symbols on the side at a bus stop, a lumpish greyscale mother and daughter standing to the side of a mother and son in a more realistic style, in full color.

On the next spread we see the girl and her mother from the front, still greyscale but highly stylized like early cartoons, the busdriver, too is grey, with micky mouse gloved hands and a nose more like Goofy, his speech balloon is all gibberish symbols. The boy, Dat, hugs his mother goodbye and introduces himself to the driver, who gets his name wrong.

And so his day goes, Dat in color, the rest in greyscale, the other teachers as old school cartoons who might be dog people, the other kids are strange little monsters, the reader as confused as Dat by everything, including the gibberish word symbols. After a long, puzzling day amid the outsized monsters, there is more color and clarity, and the world begins to make sense to the reader, just as it does to Dat.

The final endpaper spread replaces the black and white icons with letters.

Vo has taken his experience as an animator and created empathy for the stranger as no words have ever done. I am awed.

Library copy show less

Primary (Grades K-3)
This book is about Dat and his struggle not knowing English. To him everyone is speaking gibberish the bus driver taking him to school, his teacher, his classmates. Since he does not know English he feels alone until Julie sees him and starts to play with him while ignoring the language barrier. On the bus home she starts to teach Dat English by using pictures.
This book shows some struggles that ESL students might face at school. By showing it to my class we can discuss show more how we could make the student feel welcomed and a part of the classroom community. But also have a conversation about how not everyone speaks English and that some people only learn the language once they move to an English speaking country. show less