1. Title: American Born Chinese
2. Author: Gene Luen Yang
3. Illustrator: Gene Luen Yang
4. Publisher and Publishing Date: First Second Books, 2006
5. Genre: Multi-Cultural, Graphic Novel
6. Age range for which the book is appropriate: 8-12
7. Students would like this book because it has an interesting plot line and it has well developed characters. Also, they would like this book because it deals with immigration issues and issues of fitting in and the cost one must pay to do so. Also, students like graphic novels.
8. A summary:
The story starts with three seemingly different stories that become one in the end. The Monkey King story is about a monkey king that wants to get into heaven and become a god like being of success. He is very selfish. The Jin Wang story, the actual story, is about a boy who moves to America at a young age and struggles to fit into the identity of an American without also losing himself. The third tale is of Danny, a white boy, whose Chinese cousin comes to visit him every year and embarrasses him so he has to leave to a new school every year. Danny and Jin turn out to be the same kid and represents that he must maintain both identities to be himself.
9. Personal Response:
I loved the book and intend to teach it as soon as I can afford to do so. I noticed how the book does an excellent job of using literary themes and ideals to tell an interesting story of an immigrant boy struggling with his identity. This book relates too many of the young adult novels I have read in that it gives a true story of struggle that many teens face.
10. Teaching ideas:
I would definitely teach this book because my students would love it. I intend to use it within my English II class to support the state curriculum on multicultural studies. As a multigenre/technological approach to teaching this novel, I would have students create a PowerPoint with slides of their own graphic novel depicting their own memoir of teenage life as they experience it.
