{"id":131,"date":"2008-05-27T22:01:08","date_gmt":"2008-05-28T02:01:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/2008\/05\/27\/review-of-american-born-chinese-by-gene-luen-yang\/"},"modified":"2008-10-11T21:08:51","modified_gmt":"2008-10-12T01:08:51","slug":"review-of-american-born-chinese-by-gene-luen-yang","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/?p=131","title":{"rendered":"Review of American Born Chinese, by Gene Luen Yang"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"american_born_chinese.jpg\"\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

American Born Chinese<\/em>, by Gene Luen Yang, color by Lark Pien.
\nFirst Second, New York, 2006.\u00a0 233 pages.
\nWinner of the 2007 Printz Medal.
\nStarred Review
\nSonderbooks Stand-out 2008, Number 1, Contemporary Teen Fiction
\nMy son loves graphic novels, but I haven\u2019t read many myself.\u00a0 However, when American Born Chinese<\/em> won the Printz Medal for an outstanding Young Adult Novel, I decided this was one I should read.<\/p>\n

I checked it out, but didn\u2019t get around to reading it until it was due the next day.\u00a0 I loved it!\u00a0 I knew my son just had<\/em> to read it.\u00a0 Fortunately, graphic novels are quick reading, so he finished it before the day was over and I could turn it in.<\/p>\n

This book is done beautifully.\u00a0 The author uses the graphic novel form in a way that makes the story better than it would be as a regular novel.\u00a0 I love the expressions on faces, and the way he uses visual storytelling and creative formats to tell the story.<\/p>\n

There are three parallel stories in this book.\u00a0 First is the story of the Monkey King.\u00a0 He goes to a party with other gods, and they laugh at him for being a monkey.\u00a0 He shows them.\u00a0 Then we see Jin Yang, a boy born in America to Chinese parents.\u00a0 They move from Chinatown in San Francisco to a place where he is the only Chinese kid in his class.\u00a0 The third story has the format of a television show.\u00a0 An American high school kid named Danny somehow has a cousin Chin Kee who\u2019s terribly Chinese.\u00a0 He visits Danny every year and embarrasses him so badly at his school that Danny\u2019s been switching schools every year.<\/p>\n

All the stories beautifully and unexpectedly come together at the end, with a well-told theme of being who you truly are.<\/p>\n

At one point in the story of the Monkey King, he meets Tze-Yo-Tzuh, He Who Is, a God more powerful than any other gods.\u00a0 At first, I was a bit offended when he started describing himself with words used from the Bible:\u00a0 \u201cI was, I am, and I shall forever be.\u00a0 I have searched your soul, little monkey.\u00a0 I know your most hidden thoughts.\u00a0 I know when you sit and when you stand, when you journey and when you rest.\u00a0 Even before a word is upon your tongue, I have known it.\u00a0 My eyes have seen all your days.\u201d<\/p>\n

However, as I read on, I realized the author had beautifully placed the God Who Is into this tale about being the person (or monkey god) whom you were created to be.\u00a0 This is a beautifully told, powerfully presented tale of the individuality God has lovingly placed in each one of us.\u00a0 Yet it doesn\u2019t come across as a religious story at all.\u00a0 On the contrary, it comes across as a laugh-out-loud light-hearted comic book story.\u00a0 Magnificent!<\/p>\n

Buy from Amazon.com<\/font><\/a><\/p>\n

Find this review on the main site at:<\/p>\n

www.sonderbooks.com\/Teens\/american_born_chinese.html<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u00a0 American Born Chinese, by Gene Luen Yang, color by Lark Pien. First Second, New York, 2006.\u00a0 233 pages. Winner of the 2007 Printz Medal. Starred Review Sonderbooks Stand-out 2008, Number 1, Contemporary Teen Fiction My son loves graphic novels, but I haven\u2019t read many myself.\u00a0 However, when American Born Chinese won the Printz Medal […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37,31,42,8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-131","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-graphic-novel","category-stand-outs","category-starred-review","category-teen-fiction-review"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/131","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=131"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/131\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=131"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=131"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=131"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}