Week 4:  American Born Chinese by Gene Yang (First Second Books, 2006, paperback)

I was recommended this graphic novel by a librarian that specializes in young adult literature. She thought I’d find it appealing because of my interest in American multicultural literature. It was a National Book Award finalist and won several young adult fiction awards.

This novel tells several different stories–it starts with the Chinese fable of the Monkey King as he battles for respectability with other mythical gods; it continues with the story of Jin Wang, a young Chinese-American boy facing stereotyping in his new school; finally, we get the story of Danny, a blond white boy dismayed by the visit of his cousin Chin-Kee, who embodies all the stereotypes of Chinese. 

The three stories ultimately converge, as each character finds a path towards self-acceptance. The skill of this novel is the way Yang draws you in with the story and the visuals–each character is appealing and the visuals give life to their experiences. I particularly liked the story of the Monkey King. In fact, one of major criticisms is that I wanted more of his story. There is a significant gap in his story that made the conclusion to the novel a bit unsupported.

This is a good book, particularly for younger readers. The story is not sophisticated for the classes I teach, but I really admire Yang’s skill in bringing the issues of Chinese-Americans to mainstream youth audiences. This is the type of graphic novel that, hopefully, will drawn students into wanting to read more, perhaps about the Monkey King himself.

Next week . . .  Longitude by Dava Sobel.