March Book Club: American Born Chinese

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Yay! It's March! You know what that means – spring and time to thaw out! Also time for another month of CRLiterature's book club!


What We're Doing

This month we'll be reading American Born Chinese, a graphic novel by Gene Luen Yang. We will be stopping at page 130 for the mid-month discussion on March 15 with spoilers up until that point. (It's after the scene with Danny and Steve in the gym). At our end-of-the-month discussion, we will be discussing the entire book, with all the spoilers. So get reading!!


You can find this book at your local library or bookstore, Amazon and Barnes & Noble, as well as for Kindle and Nook if e-readers are your thing. For international readers, try Book Depository or Amazon UK.

American Born Chinese Cover by doodlerTM

For those who might not know, Gene Luen Yang is an award-winning Chinese-American graphic novelist, teacher, and advocate of comics and graphic novels for educational utilization.


What we're reading

American Born Chinese is a teen graphic novel with a focus on identity, myth and culture. Here's the blurb from Amazon: 

"Jin Wang starts at a new school where he’s the only Chinese-American student. When a boy from Taiwan joins his class, Jin doesn’t want to be associated with an FOB like him. Jin just wants to be an all-American boy, because he’s in love with an all-American girl. Danny is an all-American boy: great at basketball, popular with the girls. But his obnoxious Chinese cousin Chin-Kee’s annual visit is such a disaster that it ruins Danny’s reputation at school, leaving him with no choice but to transfer somewhere he can start all over again. The Monkey King has lived for thousands of years and mastered the arts of kung fu and the heavenly disciplines. He’s ready to join the ranks of the immortal gods in heaven. But there’s no place in heaven for a monkey. Each of these characters cannot help himself alone, but how can they possibly help each other? They’re going to have to find a way—if they want fix the disasters their lives have become."

Incidentally, the Monkey King (Sun Wukong) is a character from Chinese mythology, specificially the story Journey to the West. So here's some fan-art and interpretations of Journey To the West and the Monkey King.

Monkey king cloud surfing... by barontieriJourney to the West by gavi-gaviThe Journey To The West by bcnyArtThe monkey king by Ntocha


Prizes!!


Of course, we can't forget about prizes for participation. Prizes are awarded based on participation in the mid-month and end journals. For the month of March, we will be giving away This One Summer, an awesome teen graphic novel, by Mariko Tamaki and Jillian Tamaki, courtesy of First Second/MacMillan.


This One Summer Cover by doodlerTM


Free books, great discussion about books – what more could you want?



Skin by Dan Leveille
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QuentinZero's avatar
OMG YES A GRAPHIC NOVEL BLESS THY SOUL ^^