American Born Chinese by Gene Luen Yang

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

Brief Summary: American Born Chinese is a graphic novel that alternates between three characters, the monkey king, Jin Wang, and Danny/Chin-Kee. With Jin Wang’s struggles to fit into a mostly white community, Chin-Kee’s stereotypically Chinese life, and the monkey king’s journey in the heavens, Yang tells three seemingly independent stories. However, they all come together in a surprising way in the end.

Overall impression: Great combination of fantasy and a young boy’s true experiences as an Chinese-American.

Critical Analysis: This graphic novel is absolutely necessary for any library young adult collection. It is developmentally appropriate for teens 13 and up. Although the main characters begin as young kids, the majority of the stories take place while the characters are young adults and readers younger than 13 may not understand the stereotypical aspects without guidance. The whole story is focused on the lives of characters from the Chinese culture, but any YAs could relate and benefit from reading it. Many of the experiences of Jin Wang are things that the author himself went through. He deals with racism and other prejudices which readers can either directly relate to or can empathize with at the very least. Because some of the events are true, readers will be affected in a deeper way and could learn about the struggles that some of their peers are probably going through.

Strengths of this graphic novel are its 3 in 1 story, its display of Chinese stereotypes in a realistic way, and its great drawings/story flow. The weakness (completely in my opinion) was its ending. I’m glad that the three stories connected in the end, but I thought it was too strange compared to the rest of the book and took away from the believability of Jin’s story.         

Activity: An activity that could be used to promote this book would be to have a comic strip contest for YAs. Other graphic novels could be displayed with American Born Chinese and YAs could be given the opportunity to create their own short comic strip. Different categories could be applied such as comic strips about a personal story, nonfiction story, adventure story, etc.

                                  

Related Resources: http://geneyang.com/american-born-chinese This is the author’s website which has information on the three different points of view of the book, the monkey king, Jin Wang, and Chin-Kee. Readers might enjoy learning about the reasons Yang chose to write about these three characters.

http://en.chinaculture.org/ This website gives information on China’s culture. Readers could use this information as a way to better understand portions of Yang’s book.

Published Review: Thornell, Peter. "American Born Chinese." Library Journal 139.10 (2014): 53. Book Review Digest Plus (H.W. Wilson). Web. 4 July 2016.