It skilfully intertwines the legend of the Monkey King with a story of immigration and cultural heritage, and speaks to all who have struggled with identity and belonging with a relevance far beyond just the US experience. The contribution of colourist Lark Pien to the extrardinary look and feel of this book should not be overlooked.

Dig deeper

The creator

• Humble Comics, the website of Gene Luen Yang
• Gene Luen Yan’s blog
• Biography (Wikipedia)
• Author profile (by Dr Agatha Taomina, Northern Virginia Community College)

The text

• Some pages from the novel (FirstSecond website)
• Wikipedia article (like the others we have use for TrailerTuesday, this needs work)
• Gene Luen Yang and others talk about the novel (YouTube)

Reviews

• Fiction Focus
• Publishers Weekly (scroll right down to Comics)
• New York Times
• A collation of reviews from FirstSecond

Interviews with Gene Yang

• Origins of American Born Chinese (FirstSecond)
• School Library Journal
• Audio slideshow interview from National Public Radio (with images from the text)
• Asia Pacific Arts : The Second Life of Gene Yang
• Kartika
• The Trades
• The Daily Cross-Hatch interview, Part One and Part Two
• Speech and reading at Penn State University (February 2009) as part of the university’s Graphic Novelists series (YouTube)
• Sandbox
• Asian-American Graphic Novelist Turns Life into Comics (America.gov)

Awards

• Winner – Michael L. Printz Award 2007
• Winner – Best Graphic Album, Eisner Awards 2007
• Finalist – National Book Awards 2007
• Winner – Best Colorist to Lark Pien, Harvey Awards 2007
• American Library Association Best Books for Young Adults Top Ten List 2007
• YALSA Great Graphic Novel for Teens, Top Ten List 2007
• New York Public Library Books for the Teen Age, 2007
• Winner – Graphic Novel. Cybils Awards 2006
• Publishers Weekly Best Books of the Year: Graphic Novels 2006
• School Library Journal Best Books of the Year 2006

Read More

• Grappling with Graphic Novels. Special Feature, Fiction Focus Vol 19 (2), 2005
• Not Just for Kids, Not Just for Fun : Graphic Novel Update. Feature Article, Fiction Focus, vol. 22 (3), 2008
• An annotated list of graphic novels from the CMIS Resource Bank
• Enticing Teenagers into the Library (Clare Snowball’s PhD research project on graphic novels)
• Monkey Kingdom – Gene Yang’s dedication to the Monkey King
• Comics in Education – Gene Yang’s online version of his MEd proposal at California State University
• Scott McCloud’s blog, Good Morning, Comics
• Comics in the Classroom (University of North Carolina)

While there has been some debate as to whether this is the right category for his story, there is no doubting the power of it, as the book trailer reveals. You could do worse than to use the simplicity of this trailer as a starting point to analyse how other graphic novels / memoirs are constructed. There is no sign of publication of Stitches in Australia yet, but it looks like one to watch for.

The CMIS database has a list of graphic novels and memoirs here.

From the GetGraphic site…

Get Graphic: The World in Words and Pictures is a community-wide two year project designed to introduce teens, parents, librarians and teachers to the exciting and extremely popular literary format of graphic novels.

The Teachers and Librarians pages include resources and extensive links to online materials to support units of work on graphic novels.

A comprehensive List of Graphic Novel Titles is available.

Check out the rss feed page for available feeds and information about how to subscribe using rss readers.

Useful links to online resources are availabe at our CMIS delicious account – Graphic_Novels. [These sites were tagged during September 2008 to provide links to resources to support teachers, teacher librarians and library staff involved in the selection and integration of graphic novels in classroom programs and school library collections.]

The CMIS Resource Bank contains reviews of over 60 graphic novels

We’re guessing that the jury who read SKIM saw it as an illustrated novel.  It’s not;  it’s a graphic novel.  In illustrated novels, the words carry the burden of telling the story, and the illustrations serve as a form of visual reinforcement. But in graphic novels, the words and pictures BOTH tell the story, and there are often sequences (sometimes whole graphic novels) where the images alone convey the narrative.  The text of a graphic novel cannot be separated from its illustrations because the words and the pictures together ARE the text.  Try to imagine evaluating SKIM if you couldn’t see the drawings.  Jillian’s contribution to the book goes beyond mere illustration:  she was as responsible for telling the story as Mariko was.

Tough call for Jillian, and a bittersweet success for Mariko should she win the Children’s Literature category when the awards are announced on Tuesday.

The first two on his list, Maus and Persepolis, have been reviewed in Fiction Focus. Alice in Sunderland, which comes in ninth spot, will be reviewed soon. Others are older titles, or not necessarily YA, but the list is interesting.

Coincidentally, Clare Snowball, a PhD student at Curtin University, today posted a terrific piece on her blog about challenges to graphic novels in libraries. It’s here.