American Born Chinese

Title: American Born Chinese

Author: Gene Luen Yang

Publication date: 2006

Number of pages: 240

Genre: graphic novel
Geographical Setting: San Francisco’s Chinatown, an American middle class town, China of ancient folktales

Time Preiod: 1980s-90s

Series: N/A

Plot Summary: Jin Wang is a Chinese American middle school student who only wants to fit in with the rest of his white classmates. Rumors about his culture spread quickly amongst the other students making it difficult to pursue his first crush. He also resists being friends with the only other Asian boy in school who is a reminder of how different Jin is his classmates. Jin’s story of growing up as an outsider is intertwined with the Chinese folk tale of the Monkey King and the ethnic stereotype of a character named Chin-Kee.

Subject Headings: racism, assimilation, Chinese-American culture, first love, cultural stereotypes, puberty

Appeal: first graphic novel recognized by the National Book Foundation, first generation American story, colored by cartoonist Lark Pien, ethnic stereotypes, learning to be comfortable in your own skin, young boy’s experiencing the embarrassing effects of puberty

If you liked American Born Chinese, you might enjoy: Sherman Alexie’s The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian. Marjane’s Satrapi’s Persepolis.

The Complete Maus

Title: The Complete Maus: A Survivor’s Tale
Author: Art Spiegelman
Publication date: 1973, 1986
Number of pages: 296
Genre: graphic novel

Geographical Setting: Poland, Auschwitz concentration camp, upstate New York

Time Period: late 1930s, the Second World War, 1970s, 1980s
Series: two books in this collection, “My Father Bleeds History” & “And Here My Troubles Began”

Plot Summary: Spiegelman, born after WWII, interviews his father about his experiences as a Jew living in Nazi-occupied Poland. In the first book, Spiegelman’s father, Vladek, recounts his life in pre-war Poland and marriage to Art’s mother and his enlistment in the army. Tales of life in the ghetto and their hidings as the Final Solution is put into effect by the Nazis are depicted in Spiegelman’s drawings. The second book depicts his father’s experiences in a concentration camp and his survival and new life in America. Spiegelman uses animal as characters with the Jews depicted as mice and the Germans as cats.

Subject Headings: the Holocaust, survival, Hitler, Nazis, the Jews, concentration camps, biography, memoir

Appeal: biographical, father and son relationship, historical fiction, Holocaust literature, effects of war on families, graphic novel, comic book, Young Adult Literature, suicide by a parent, winner of Pulitzer Prize, survivor guilt, anthropomorphic characters

If you liked the Maus books, you might enjoy: Marjane Satrapi’s Persepolis- graphic novel about a young Iranian girl’s life during the Islamic Revolution through the Iran-Iraq war. E. Tina Tito’s Teen Witnesses to the Holocaust, Liberation: Teens in the Concentration Camps and the Teen Soldiers Who Liberated Them.