Citation:
Yang, Gene Lucn. American Born Chinese. New
York: First Second, 2006. print.
Annotation:
Jin Wang is an Asian American student trying to fit in at school. Unfortunately at school he encounters some racism
and ignorance from other students.
Justification for Rejection:
The story in this graphic
novel really does not make sense. In the
beginning of the graphic novel there are three different storylines. The storyline about Jin Wang appears to be
the main focus of the graphic novel, the monkey king story looks like an introduction
into Chinese mythology, and the story about Chin-Kee seems like some bad racist
joke that made no sense. At the end of
the graphic novel all three stories come together and that really seems to mess
up the story about Jin Wang, because up until that point the main plot seemed
to be realistic fiction. So not only did
all of the storylines not make sense, but at the end the main story line goes
from making sense, to extreme bizarreness.
The text in the graphic
novel does go with the illustrations.
The use of color seemed to add an interesting dimension to the graphic
novel, because graphic novels are usually in black and white. The characters are drawn the same throughout
the novel. The drawings and text do keep
the reader traveling though the storyline.
The entire graphic novel
did have teen appeal. Jin Wang’s high
school drama will speak to the teens about fitting in with their peers and the racism
that minority groups sometimes have to deal with. The story of the monkey king will interest
teens with its colorful telling of Chinese mythology. Chin-Kee’s story would speak to the teenage
audience about being publicly humiliated, by an embarrassing relative.
Although this graphic
novel had some positive elements to it the main downer about this book is how
the storyline did not make any sense. If
the author would have kept Jin Wang’s story serious and the monkey king tale as
an interesting introduction to Chinese culture, then the graphic novel would
have been way better. The Chin-Kee story
seemed completely unnecessary and distracts the reader from the rest of the
story.
Genre:
Graphic Novel / Multicultural
