Goodbye, Koi
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- Pre-Order
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- Expected Sep 15, 2026
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- $12.99
Publisher Description
The award-winning creator of the hugely popular When You Can Swim delivers another tender and visually stunning picture book about change, family, and saying goodbye.
As a young boy prepares with his family to leave their home - and the koi fish he's always cared for - his world fills with questions. What will happen to his fish? Will they be safe and happy in their new home? Through his wonder and worry, readers glimpse the universal feelings that come with any life transition: curiosity, uncertainty, and the hope that we will be okay.
Lushly illustrated in the tradition of Chinese brush painting, Goodbye, Koi will resonate with any reader who has ever had to say goodbye to a pet, a place, or a way of life.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Wong (The Music Inside Us) traces a family's relocation through a child's musings in an affecting tale that, per an author's note, is rooted in the creator's own childhood move from Hong Kong to Canada. As a father and child prepare for their move, they take their pet koi to a garden, where an employee releases them into a pond. In the days that follow, the young narrator contemplates the fish: "I hope they like their new big pond, under the big blue sky." When the child worries about how the weather may affect the previously indoor animals, the parent's words affirm and reassure ("Dad says that if they do get cold, they'll know what to do"). As the duo goes about errands and visits, text focused on the child's inner world acknowledges processing about change while underscoring the family's strength and resolve. Painted in two traditional Chinese ink styles, the story's watercolor and digitally collaged artwork alternates between precisely drafted spreads of the human characters and liquidly brushed close-ups of the koi. In this thoughtful work, redirecting feelings about the upcoming unknown softens a sense of loss without diminishing its significance. An author's note concludes. Ages 4–8.
