Julie Leung’s 2026 Navigating Night is a quiet, heavy, important picture book.
It follows a Chinese-American girl as she and her father navigate a dark and rainy night in order to deliver Chinese food to those who ordered it. Baba (the father) drives, and the girl navigates.
They talk as they drive, often in short, functional bursts (giving directions, confirming addresses, etc.), but at times about huge, life-changing events (the unnamed political upheaval that led Baba to leave his home and come to the United States). As they drive, the daughter looks for street signs and at their customers. With some there is caring interaction. Others she sees through windows with longing.
And, always, as they drive, she thinks and feels. She feels very much the outsider, and yearns to be normal.
But.
But her father’s gift of trust and story, his explicit statement that before her, he would get lost, and, at the book’s end, when they are back at the restaurant, his care to make sure she gets the “most tender pieces” of food, communicate an immense weight of love.
I didn’t cry reading this, but I ached.
This book won’t be for all kids, but those caught between cultures, those who must work while others play, or those who simply feel themselves excluded, will recognize themselves here.
Angie Kang’s illustrations are heavy with the color of night, and edges are often blurred, like we too are seeing the story through the rain.
