Wednesday, November 15, 2006

American Born Chinese


American Born Chinese
Originally uploaded by barbfecteau.
Here it is ladies and gentlemen - what I believe is the first lock in the BHS 2007 Summer Reading Extravaganza. I just got my copy from Amazon yesterday and reread it and it is as good as I remember. As a matter of fact, it could very well win the National Book Award tonight. I know, the suspense is killing me, too!

The premise is that Jin Wang is a sweet young geek who feels like a lot of his problems stem from the fact he is Asian-American. Then there is the monkey king who feels like his problems stem from the fact that people do not worship him appropriatly. Then there is Chin-Kee who has problems they have not even developed names for yet.

The way this book plays out it terrific. It is a graphic novel (Did I mention that?) which means that at some point some person is going to say, "You're reading a comic book for summer reading?" at which point you should look at them distainfully and tell them to take a look at the New York Times Magazine from (and at some point I will put an actual date here) and then look at them pityingly for their cluelessness.