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American Born Chinese Gene Luen Yang. 2006. New York: First Second, 2006. 233 pp. $16.95. Grades 6 and up. ISBN: 978-1-59643-208-6.
Jin Wang is a third grader when his family moves from San Francisco's Chinatown to the typical, White, middle-class, American suburbs. As a first-generation American of Chinese heritage, Jin suffers from the stereotypes and prejudices of his peers and teachers, starting at the Mayflower Elementary School and continuing through high school. In a parallel story told in alternating chapters, Danny is an apparently run-of-the-mill, White suburbanite attending Oliphant High School. His attempts to have a normal high school life are plagued by the annual intrusion of his cousin, Chin Kee, from China. In a third (presumably unrelated) story, Wong Lai-Tsao is...