posted on 12 Mar 2025

The Endless Sea by Chi Thai, illustrated by Linh Dao

The escalating temperature surrounding the political debate over the ever-growing numbers of displaced people and refugees and where they can find safety or sense of home, threatens to obscure the central reality – that this is about real people with families like our own and with hopes for the future that we all share. The danger is that we simply dehumanise them and turn them into ‘others’ – somehow a threat to our own well-being. There are those who are quick to take up the welcome mat as soon as times get tough economically and quick to lose sight of the idea that embracing those in need will ultimately make society stronger and bring new skills and strengths to our communities.

So wonderful books like Chi Thai’s The Endless Sea are a vital part of keeping the flame of humanity burning in a world increasingly becoming hostile and polarised. Now based in the UK where her family eventually arrived when they were forced to flee from South Vietnam when the author was just four years old, The Endless Sea brilliantly captures the frightening journey that refugees must take to try and find safety.

The world of the fleeing refugee is a perilous one that this story captures perfectly. Every stage of the journey is laced with danger and what we come to see in terrifying detail is just how random survival or death can be when they set out on their quest. Will you be the family plucked from the flimsy boat on the raging seas – or one of the ones left behind? These are never journeys taken lightly and they are never easy but the need to find sanctuary and the will to survive drives them on.

What I also loved about this book was the way in which it illustrates just how the trauma of the journey lives with the child as she grows and is constantly revisited in her dreams. Chi Thai was one of the lucky ones but despite that she will have the memory of what it means to be a refugee with her forever. 

The author tells us more details of her history in a page and a half of prose at the end but, to be honest, the power of the story told through the eyes of her four-year-old self, combined with the really outstanding full page and double-spread illustrations do the job in a way that demands no further explanation.

A word too for Linh Dao’s superb illustrations that perfectly capture the mood of the book and draw you into the perilous journey – they add another dimension to the whole experience.

Available now from Walker Books, you will be able to get a copy from your local independent bookshop – who will be happy to order it for you if they don’t have it on their shelves.

 

Terry Potter

March 2025