This was a beautiful immigration story. Children of immigrants who speak a different language can be thrust into difficult situations as translators. I loved that it showed a problem, then that the father and daughter fixed it together. Great theme of family and acceptance.

I love this book because it is so true that children have to often translate for their parents when they come to a new country and have to learn a new language. In this one, the child’s father has been trying to learn English, but Angie has learned it faster, so offers to translate for him, with everyone.

And when people need signs in English, she starts translating from Cantanese for them, helping them all out, until it doesn’t work out.

And then she learns that her father knows Cantanese as well as a dialect name Hakka, which Angie doesn’t know, but it allowed her father to speak to one of the merchants that needed a sign.

The name of the book in Cantonese is “The Same Heart in DIfferent Languages”, and the author asked her mother to help her translate it to Cantanese.

This book throws in Chinese characters whenever the father is speaking, so if a child knew the language they could read along as well.

Thanks to Netgally for making this book available ffor an honest review. The book is coming out October 10th 2023.

I absolutely loved this book!

Angie is growing up in Canada after immigrating from China. Her dad only speaks Cantonese, and needs help translating signs into English for his janitorial job. Angie sets out to help the other Chinese business owners in her neighborhood with signs. She doesn’t get the instructions on a sign quite right at the laundromat and brings her dad to face the owner. She discovers her dad speaks another language too!

The Words We Share by Jack Wong

Little Angie and her family are immigrants to Canada. Angie quickly learns English at school, but her father finds it hard to learn the language, so he relies upon Angie to translate. Soon she is helping others in her neighbourhood - until a problem arises! A charming story of a child and her father, and how they help each other to thrive in their new community.

I enjoyed this warm-hearted story. It brings to life some of the challenges faced by immigrants, especially the difficulty of a new language. It also shows how an emotional setback can be solved with a little encouragement and communication. The illustrations match the story beautifully, making this an excellent bed-time picture-book to share with a 4 to 8 year old. This kind of book inspires an interest in words and reading.

This is such a sweet story. Angie's dad doesn't speak much English, so she translates for him because she's learned a lot in school. Then she starts translating for other people in her community. A misunderstanding lets her see her dad in a whole new light, as much more capable than he seemed, when she had to read menus for him in restaurants (for example).

The illustrations are sweet and very expressive. I love the muted colors and unexpected outline colors used. The story is told in simple language that fits Angie and her story and holds a lot of emotion and really tugs at the heartstrings. I can see a lot of children of immigrant parents really relating to Angie and her dad.

I would recommend this to elementary school classrooms to help children be more understanding and empathetic to anyone they meet who doesn't speak much English. There is a lot of hate and mistrust out there these days towards immigrants, and I think books like this in the classroom would do a lot to mitigate it.

I will be sharing this with my 8-year-0ld this weekend.

*Thanks to NetGalley and Annick Press for providing an early copy for review.