KPL Announces 2022 Reading Together Title The Best We Could Do: An Illustrated Memoir by Thi Bui
Save the Date: Meet the Author March 22 | 7 pm | Chenery Auditorium
Kalamazoo Public Library is pleased to announce its 2022 Reading Together book title, The Best We Could Do: An Illustrated Memoir by award-winning author and cartoonist Thi Bui, who will speak in Kalamazoo on Tuesday, March 22, at 7 pm at Chenery Auditorium. Copies of the book will be available at all KPL locations soon.
About The Book
This is the first time in its 20-year history that a graphic novel has been selected for the Reading Together program. This beautifully illustrated and emotional story is an evocative memoir about the search for a better future and a 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.
At the heart of Bui’s story is a universal struggle: While adjusting to life as a first-time mother, she 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, Bui pushes through. With haunting, poetic writing and breathtaking art, she examines the strength of family, the importance of identity, and the meaning of home.
In what Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist Viet Thanh Nguyen calls “a book to break your heart and heal it,” The Best We Could Do brings to life Thi Bui’s journey of understanding, and provides inspiration to all of those who search for a better future while longing for a simpler past.
About the Author
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 debut graphic memoir, The Best We Could Do (Abrams ComicArts, 2017) has been selected for an American Book Award, a Common Book for UCLA and other colleges and universities, an all-city read by Seattle and San Francisco public libraries, a National Book Critics Circle finalist in autobiography, and an Eisner Award finalist in reality-based comics. It made over thirty best of 2017 book lists, including Bill Gates’ top five picks. She illustrated the picture book, A Different Pond, written by the poet Bao Phi (Capstone, 2017), for which she won a Caldecott Honor. With her son, Hien, she co-illustrated the children’s book, Chicken of the Sea (McSweeney’s, 2019), written by Pulitzer winner Viet Thanh Nguyen and his son, Ellison. 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.
About Reading Together
The purpose of Reading Together is to build a stronger community with deeper connections through the common experience of reading the same book and exploring its themes together. When we do that, we engage and learn, not only about ourselves, but more importantly about each other and the world around us.
By experiencing the same book, hearing the author of that work speak right here in Kalamazoo, and examining the book’s themes through a local lens, we are able to embrace our similarities and differences from a common point of reference. To put it simply, when we read together, we grow together.
For questions regarding Reading Together or this year’s author Thi Bui, please contact Karen Trout, Community Engagement Librarian at 269.553.7895 or email [email protected].