Simone

A beautifully produced tale by @viet_t_nguyen & @minnie_phan following #Simone and her family as they flee for their lives when a wildfire takes hold near their home. This hybrid #graphicnovel and #picturebook is sumptuously illustrated and sparsely but carefully narrated. A story of hope and change, and the belief in the next generation to make real changes to look after the work we live in.

Today’s story is an absolute beauty, and one that will engage older ks2 children in really deep discussion. Simone by @viet_t_nguyen and @minnie_phan published by @minervakidlit is the beautifully heartbreaking story of a girl and her mother who are displaced from their home when wildfires threaten. It’s bad enough, but then Simone learns of her mother’s struggles when having to leave her home in Vietnam. This story sounds like it should be a sad, tragic picture book, but it’s actually really positive and uplifting, and ends with Simone being so thankful for what she does have! This is a wonderful book to begin studying immigration and reasons why people look to move countries. It also allows children to study different natural disasters and the effects it can have on the locals . It’s a beautiful book that has so much, and I think older ks2 children will absolutely love this story.

This is a multifaceted picture book centring around the topic of natural disasters and the community response to these. When a wildfire threatens Simone’s home she shares with her Má, they are forced to evacuate to a shelter. Throughout their stay there are discussions around the diverse firefighters fighting the fire, including those from the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation. Provoking much needed representation and a point for further conversation on the ethics of using prisoners as firefighters. Má also draws parallels to her own childhood and the floods she experienced in Viet Nam. With a clever use of colour, the book spreads a positive message of a community supporting eachother and the power of a child’s art to provide comfort to their peers.

Viet Thanh Nguyen is the author of The Sympathizer, which won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, and A Man of Two Faces- A Memoir, A History, A Memorial. His first picture book was Chicken of the Sea, co-written with his son, Ellison Nguyen, and illustrated by Thi Bui and her son, Hien Bui-Stafford.

Minnie Phan is an illustrator and writer based in Oakland, CA. Her work has been featured by Google, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, and the San Francisco Public Library, for which she illustrated a citywide reading campaign in 2022. She is the illustrator of the picture book The Yellow o D i, written by Hanh Bui.

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