American Born Chinese

Yang, Gene Luen. American Born Chinese. New York: First Second, 2006.

Annotation: Born in America to hardworking Chinese immigrant parents, Jin seeks acceptance amongst his mostly white peers by shunning his heritage.


Justification for nomination: This story packs a big punch into a small, accessible package. Readers follow Jin's growth from a lonely, oblivious child into an even more lonely and oblivious young teen. He's aware that his Chinese heritage is fodder for the classmates that he'd like to be friends with, and so he accepts the friendship of Wei-Chen, a fellow Chinese boy, half-heartedly. Interspersed with Jin's life are vignettes from the age-old Chinese legend, the Monkey King. As the monkey's selfishness and vanity lead him into disfavor with divinity and a trap that he cannot escape from without assistance from others, so do Jin's understandable yet still selfish choices lead him into an utterly friendless existence.

Graphic novels, due to their proximity to the Sunday comics, are a virtually unintimidating format for those kids that shy away from novels full of words and no pictures, or those who believe themselves poor readers. Yang's drawings are simple, the action flows effortlessly, and many of his simple images convey universal teenage experiences with nary a word. The reader witnesses Jin's first date and his betrayal of Wei-Chen's loyal friendship thoroughly via just a few drawings.

Mixing up ancient legends, classic coming-of-age lessons, the difficulties faced by ethnic minorities in American high schools into an easy-to-read and brief story speaks to the high literary skill evidenced in this book. Savvy and/or guided readers can use the Eastern spiritual guideposts from this story to discuss the similarities and differences between Chinese and traditional American Christian cultural and philosophical beliefs. There's plenty of other issues to argue and/or discuss, too - for example, when Jin betrays his friend and then is drawn as a white person, is that how he really appeared, or was the artist only drawing him the way he saw himself? The reader has the final say. Given all of these qualities, plus the still groundbreaking significance of the comic form as a vehicle for literary work, American Born Chinese is deserving of the attention it received.

Genre: Printz; graphic novel; coming-of-age;multicultural.