American Born Chinese

raccoonboy - American born Chinese is a good book all in all, and I hope you will think good things of my review. In the book there are 3 stories, which makes the book interesting enough. Jin Wang is a Chinese-American boy in his new neighborhood and is, in fact, the only one in his school! He is constantly being picked on by bullies and makes it all worse by falling in love with an All-American girl. The Monkey King’s story about ruling over all monkeys is one of the oldest and greatest Chinese fables. But the Monkey King doesn’t want to be a monkey, he wants to be known as a god. Danny’s cousin Chin-Kee is a combination of every negative Chinese stereotype and shows it a little too much. Danny is a good athlete and a popular kid at school, but every time Chin-Kee comes around to visit by the end of the year it gets so bad that Danny has to transfer to a new school. I give this book five stars. I liked the comedy and the unique story telling. It was actually fun to read. I hope this author makes more good graphic novels like this one.

June 12, 2006
As alienated kids go, Jin Wang is fairly run-of-the-mill: he eats lunch by himself in a corner of the schoolyard, gets picked on by bullies and jocks and develops a sweat-inducing crush on a pretty classmate. And, oh, yes, his parents are from Taiwan. This much-anticipated, affecting story about growing up different is more than just the story of a Chinese-American childhood; it's a fable for every kid born into a body and a life they wished they could escape. The fable is filtered through some very specific cultural icons: the much-beloved Monkey King, a figure familiar to Chinese kids the world over, and a buck-toothed amalgamation of racist stereotypes named Chin-Kee. Jin's hopes and humiliations might be mirrored in Chin-Kee's destructive glee or the Monkey King's struggle to come to terms with himself, but each character's expressions and actions are always perfectly familiar. True to its origin as a Web comic, this story's clear, concise lines and expert coloring are deceptively simple yet expressive. Even when Yang slips in an occasional Chinese ideogram or myth, the sentiments he's depicting need no translation. Yang accomplishes the remarkable feat of practicing what he preaches with this book: accept who you are and you'll already have reached out to others.