Tuesday, January 30, 2007

American Born Chinese

American Born Chinese by Gene Luen Yang weaves three stories together to explore the issue of staying true to who you are when the popular culture seems to suggest there is a better way to be. The book is quite thought-provoking -- Yang's use of the three stories gives us a broad perspective of the situations faced by his characters and makes for a full and complex tale.

I usually struggle with graphic novels because I tend to be more focused on words rather than images, but I'm sure that this was probably the best way for the story to be told and I enjoyed every single page of it. In fact, I'm now more likely to pick up a graphic novel to read than I was before discovering this book.

American Born Chinese just won the Michael L. Printz Award for Excellence in Young Adult Literature and it's easy to see why. I certainly recommend it and you can find it in the SPL catalog by clicking here.

1 comment:

Monica said...

I recently read this book, too and absolutely loved it. I love how the three stories were weaved together.