Friday, June 1, 2007

American Born Chinese


Reading this graphic novel is easy. What makes it a good book for discussion are the issues it presents in the three intertwining stories. Jin Wang finds that he is the only Chinese-American at his new school and all he wants to do is fit in. The Monkey King, ruler of all monkeys and kung-fu master, wants to be a god. This is a retelling of an old Chinese fable. In the third aspect of the novel, Danny's life is being ruined by his cousin Chin-Kee, the ultimate negative American stereotype of the Chinese. Why do you think this modern fable earned the
prestigious Printz Award for Young Adult literature?

1 comment:

rebecca said...

I justjustjust finished reading this. Took, like, an hour. Alright. So here's what I think - after reading the novel, I just kept thinking about how seamless the stories were. The stuff about Chin-kee was really edgy, because are you supposed to be laughing at him? The illustrations weren't comic-booky and stunning - they were simple and kind of look like the early Japanese manga. That's all. Go read it.