The Best We Could Do: An Illustrated Memoir by Thi Bui

Title: The Best We Could Do: An Illustrated Memoir
Author: Thi Bui
Publisher: Harry N. Abrams
ISBN: 978-1419718786
Genre: Graphic Memoir
Pages: 344
Source: Publisher
Rating: 4/5

It isn’t easy, living this life. I do not know where I read it, or who told me this, but I guess this is true in some way or the other for all of us. It just isn’t easy. Till it becomes bearable I guess, in one way or the other that you make it. I was reminded of this, and more as I turned the pages of The Best We Could Do: An Illustrated Memoir by This Bui – about her parents who escaped to America from Vietnam in the 70s, right after the fall of South Vietnam, and the lives they struggled to build for themselves and their four children.

Of course this is the kind of book that makes you ponder through its simple illustrations – it is a book about so many stories, so many narratives that Thi Bui makes the reader aware of – conflict, what it is like to not be at home, what is home in the larger scheme of things, identity at the core of restlessness and wanting to shake that off as well, and more than anything the unspoken love between parents and children. I think to a large extent I could relate to the love that remains unspoken. I don’t recall ever saying I love you so casually to either of my parents, and the same goes for them. We don’t say it enough. Like Thi Bui says, it gets stuck in the throat.

The Best We Could Do is also about coping with life on a daily basis, with the past almost overseeing and controlling events. It is also about what it means to be a parent – from the child’s perspective, and that of the parent’s. It is about the racism that people face in the United States of America, and what it takes to “fit in”. And before you know it, you are rooting for her and her family at almost every page. The empathy is real. I cannot begin to imagine what it must take for her parents to build a life from scratch. I also while reading the book wished I had more time with my grandparents to have asked them what it was like when they moved from Pakistan to India during the Great Partition.

The Best We Could Do is a book that will grab you by the throat and make you see the beauty and the ruthlessness of humanity. It shows all sides without bias. It doesn’t take sides. For Thi Bui to be this objective, and tell the story of her family is a feat in itself. It is all about doing the best, and finding your place in the sun.

Hurry up and Wait by Maira Kalman and Daniel Handler

Title: Hurry Up and Wait
Authors: Maira Kalman and Daniel Handler in association with Museum of Modern Art
Publisher: Harry N. Abrams
ISBN: 978-0870709593
Genre: Picture Books
Pages: 64
Source: Personal Copy
Rating: 5/5

From the time I read “Why we broke up” by Daniel Handler and Maira Kalman, I have been a fan of whatever they come about to do together. Their works together are something else – for children or for adults. The creative collaboration I am sure must be quite something for the two, but the end result for the readers is magnificent. The good thing about this book is that it is also done in association with the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) – and is quite reflective of Handler’s and Kalman’s playful creativity.

This time for me that happened when I read “Hurry up and Wait” – another collaboration between the two (after reading this I immediately ordered a copy of Girls standing on lawns) – and as the title suggests, it is about hurrying up and also waiting to smell the roses.

The book is not a long one. It can be read under fifteen to twenty minutes, however I would not recommend this book being read or seen that way. At first, it may seem nothing – this 64 page book. It might even seem a colossal waste of money (that is if you are one of those who gauge a book’s worth basis the number of pages) but trust me, it is a book that you will keep going back to once every month or so.

Life’s pace is rushed. It is terribly hurried. We don’t know what to make of its pace sometimes, well at least I don’t know what to make of it. There are times then when all I want to do is stop – to look at everything closely – to perhaps give life another go.

There are eleven vibrant illustrations by Kalman and each one comes with a note on hurrying up and waiting by Handler. It is whimsical, capturing people (as provided by MoMA) in motion or not, giving readers a sense of time lost or regained (if we try).
I now cannot wait for my copy of “Girls standing on lawns” to reach me.

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