Navigating Night

In this poignant, wistful children’s picture book based on her childhood experiences, author Julie Leung relates the story of a young girl and her dad who deliver take-out meals prepared in their Chinese restaurant. As the dad drives, the girl navigates, a foldout map and a notebook of addresses to which they will deliver food on her lap.

At the first house, an elderly woman opens the door. The girl’s dad speaks to her in Cantonese, and the girl translates. The woman responds, “What a good kid you are, helping your dad.”

As they continue on, the girl looks miserably out the car window and thinks, “But I don’t want to be a good kid. I want to be a normal kid.” At their next stop, the girl is ashamed when a girl who lives in the house waves at her. Back in the car, the girl protests angrily, “I don’t want to go on deliveries anymore! … Other kids don’t have to do this.”

The girl’s dad doesn’t chide her for her attitude. Instead, he tells her about when he was a young boy: being forced to leave his family and nation when violence erupted; traveling alone to New York City; and learning to navigate a new country, language, and culture. He concludes, “Before I had you, I would get so lost.”

In an author note, Julie Leung writes, “This book is drawn from my childhood memories of making food deliveries with my dad in the 1990s. … Looking back on those nightly drives, I remember the brilliant, brave ways that my dad learned to adapt with limited English but a real eagerness to understand others. … To me, these memories show how children of immigrants often serve double roles: Our parents made the sacrifice of leaving their homelands to ensure better futures for us. … At the same time, in order to survive in this new world, we must, at an early age, become our parents’ translators, advocates, and navigators. We sacrifice many typical childhood experiences.”

Illustrator Angie Kang’s pensive artwork captures the girl’s emotional struggle as she resents being unlike “normal” kids, yet realizes the trust her dad places in her every night they make deliveries.

Navigating Night is a significant book for Christian parents and other adults to share with children because it offers a glimpse into the lives of newcomer children and could be a springboard to nurturing Christ-like sensitivity and compassion in kids.

(Anne Schwartz Books)