Gibberish by Young Vo

 

Synopsis:

It's Dat's first day of school in a new country! Dat and his Mah made a long journey to get here, and Dat doesn't know the language. To Dat, everything everybody says – from the school bus driver to his new classmates – sounds like gibberish. How is Dat going to make new friends if they can't understand each other?

Luckily there's a friendly girl in Dat's class who knows that there are other ways to communicate, besides just talking. Could she help make sense of the gibberish? 

My Thoughts:

Dat arrives in a new country, and starts his first day of school. Everything around him sounds like gibberish, and the people around him resemble cartoon caricatures instead of actual people. The entire neighborhood is in stark black and white. And then a girl befriends him, and as she teaches him words in this new language, the cartoons drop away, leaving a vibrant world of possibility. I really liked this picture book, and I think it's a wonderful way of showing young readers how it feels like to be an immigrant in a new country without knowing the language.