Extra Credit: American Born Chinese

Yang, Gene Luen. American Born Chinese. United States: First Second, 2006.

Annotation: There are fables, really bad stereotypes and real life, when all of this combine for Jin, all hell breaks lose. It is his responsibility to make sure life is running smoothly and when he doesn't, he is made to answer to a higher power, the Monkey of Flower Fruit Mountain; and this monkey knows kung-fu.

Justification: When I began reading this book, I had no idea it was a graphic novel, and had no idea that I would love it! When I began reading it, I thought that I would not enjoy this format at all, but I was completely wrong. I like that Yang has three stories happening consecutively: there is the real Chinese boy, the stereotype Chinese man, and the Chinese fable of the Monkey. I love how each of the stories progress, and because of the graphic novel nature, it is very easy to read and follow along. The end was a little harder for me to understand, it might be difficult for me to understand because I am not a usual comic book reader. All three of the stories came together in the end, in order to teach a moral, but it was confusing to me how each of the was exactly related to one another. However, I liked how there was humor in the book, because you aren't able to accept yourself if you aren't willing to make a joke of yourself once in a while.

I would recommend this book, because it is a different read, and fun to look at! It has a great moral to the story, everything happens for a reason and be yourself and appreciate people for who they are.

Genre Category: Printz, Graphic Novel, Multi-Cultural