ACRS presents acclaimed graphic novelist Thi Bui

In partnership with Seattle Public Library and Book-It Repertory Theatre, ACRS’ Child and Youth Development Program welcomes Vietnamese American author Thi Bui for a reading and discussion of her critically acclaimed graphic memoir The Best We Could Do on Tuesday, April 16 at 6:30 p.m. at the ACRS campus in Seattle.

The evening with Thi Bui at ACRS is part of a series of events hosted by the Seattle Public Library’s Seattle Reads program and will feature a staged reading from the book, adapted by playwright and performer Susan Lieu, who wrote and performed the play “140 lbs” at the Theatre Off Jackson.

Bui was born in Vietnam three months before the end of the Vietnam War and came to the United States in 1978 as part of the “boat people” wave of refugees from Southeast Asia. Her debut graphic novel The Best We Could Do (Abrams ComicArts, 2017) is a haunting memoir about the search for a better future and a longing for a simpler past. Bui documents her family’s daring escape after the fall of South Vietnam in the 1970s and the difficulties they faced building new lives for themselves in America. As the child of a country and a war she can’t remember, Bui’s dreamlike artwork brings to life her journey to understanding her own identity in a way that only comics can.

The Best We Could Do has earned critical acclaim in the graphic novel canon and has received five starred reviews from Publishers Weekly, Booklist, Library Journal, School Library Journal, and Shelf Awareness. It was selected as UCLA’s Common Book for 2017, a 2017 National Book Critics Circle Award finalist in the autobiography category, and an Eisner Award finalist in Reality Based Comics. Her graphic novel has also made more than 30 “Best of 2017” reading lists, including Bill Gates’s top five book picks and The Washington Post. Bui is also the Caldecott Honor-winning illustrator of A Different Pond, a picture book by the poet Bao Phi.

Bui taught high school in New York City and was a founding teacher of Oakland International High School, the first public high school in California for recent immigrants and English learners. She has been a faculty member of the MFA in Comics program at the California College of the Arts since 2015 and currently lives in the Bay Area.

ACRS invites clients and members of the community to join us in this special event, which is free and open to the public.