American Born Chinese -- excellent graphic novel

Last night I finally got around to reading American Born Chinese, a 240-page color graphic novel by Gene Luen Yang. This 2006 National Book Award Finalist is about a kid, born of Chinese parents, who must learn how to deal with being one of the few Asian students in a school attended mostly by caucasians who are either bullies or blithely rude and ignorant towards him.

What takes this interesting loss-of-innocence story and kicks it to a higher level is the way Yang intertwines two other stories into it. One is a mythical story of the Monkey King who aspires to be a god, and the other is a nightmarish sitcom about a extreme stereotype of a Chinese kid who torments his caucasian cousin with yearly disruptive visits. In the end, all three stories merge satisfyingly.

I'm a sucker for a clean line, and Yang's drawing style fits my predilection to a T. It's bold, economical, yet warm and very expressive. Link