Recently I have heard several accolades for a book called American Born Chinese (YA Graphic Novel) by Gene Luen Yang.  I learned it had won the 2007 Michael L. Printz Award for Excellence in Young Adult Literature and was the first graphic novel to be recognized by the National Book Foundation.  A graphic novel?  Yes - that up-dated version of the comic book.  But graphic novels have come a long way from Archie and Veronica!

At the beginning, I was not sure about it.  There were three seemingly separate stories - the story of the legendary Monkey King, the story of the young son of Chinese immigrants and the story of a popular high-school boy whose Chinese cousin (an exaggerated negative stereotype) comes to visit.  But I stuck with it and am glad I did.  The stories all eventually weave together in a fascinating conclusion reaffirming the importance of accepting ourselves as we are.  Yang at times seems to want to provoke us, wake us up and make us think.  Meanwhile, the style of the illustrations makes us pause our reading to fully take in the details of each frame.  And together - it all works!