Alphabet City Kids: Story Hour with Jack Wong

Following along with our ongoing Alphabet City Kids series, this youth centered program offers story time with Boston Globe-Horn Book Award Winning author/illustrator Jack Wong, as he celebrates the release of his new picture book The Words We Share. The story hour will be followed by an engagement activity and a Q&A with Jack.

In The Words We Share, a young girl named Angie helps her dad navigate life in a new country where she understands the language more than he does. Ever since they moved to Canada, he relies on her to translate for him from English to Chinese. Angie is happy to help: when they go to restaurants, at the grocery store, and, one day, when her dad needs help writing some signs for his work. Building off her success with her dad’s signs, Angie offers her translation skills to others in their community. She’s thrilled when her new business takes off, until one of her clients says he’s unhappy with her work. When her dad offers to help, she can’t imagine how he could. Working together, they find a surprising solution, fixing the problem in a way Angie never would have predicted.

With gorgeous illustrations paired with an unforgettable story about communication and community, The Words We Share is at once a much-needed exploration of the unique pressures children of immigrants often face, a meditation on the dignity of all people regardless of their differences, and a reminder of the power of empathy.  

You can purchase your own copy of Jack’s book, The Words We Share, at City of Asylum Bookstore.

About the Author:

Jack Wong (黃雋喬) (he/him) is the Boston Globe–Horn Book Award-winning author/illustrator of When You Can Swim (Scholastic) as well as the forthcoming picture books The Words We Share (Annick Press, Fall 2023), and All That Grows (Groundwood Books, Spring 2024). Jack was born in Hong Kong and raised in Vancouver. In 2010, he left behind a life as a bridge engineer to pursue his Bachelor of Fine Arts at NSCAD University (Kjipuktuk / Halifax, Canada). A self-declared actual Jack-of-all-trades, he has also tried his hand at bookkeeping, teaching art, managing a psychology research lab, and running his own bicycle repair shop, just to name a few (a real education for creating children’s books, if you ask him!) The books that Jack writes and illustrates are indelibly marked by his hodgepodge journey—a perspective he seeks to share with young readers so that they may embrace the unique amalgams of experiences that make up their own lives.

About Your Visit: 

The in-house restaurant will be closed.