Written by Bao Phi Illustrated by Thi Bui Age Range: 6 - 8 yearsHardcover: 32 pagesCapstone Young Readers, August 1, 2017
A Different Pond is a young boy's survival story of a fishing trip with his father, told in the Social Realist spirit of Eve Bunting's Fly Away Home.
Father and son are up before sunrise. A successful morning means dinner for the boy's large Vietnamese-American family. The boy asks, "If you got another job, why do we still have to fish for food?" His father explains, "Everything in America costs a lot of money."
True to life, important conversation happens while performing routine tasks. Waiting for a fish to bite, the father talks about a pond in Vietnam, where he fished when he was young. "With your brother?" asks the son. The father nods and looks away. The silence is understood. The boy knows that his father's brother "didn't come home" from the war.
But the next scene is more upbeat with a fish on the line…