In 1975, Arn Chorn-Pond was a carefree and enterprising Cambodian kid who snuck into movies with his brother, listened to the Beatles and played games of chance on the street to make money for candy and coconut cake. Then the Khmer Rouge came to town. The rebel military group had won control of Cambodia, and they began ordering Arn’s family and neighbors to pack up and leave because the Americans who had been at war with Vietnam were now coming to bomb them. The rebels would protect them and bring them back to their homes in three days. Frightened, but also a little excited, Arn joins the mass exodus out of the city of Battambang. But what he doesn’t know is that the Khmer Rouge are lying. There are no attacking Americans. What waits for him and thousands of other children in the country and fields outside of town isn’t salvation but fear, starvation and death at the hands of the brutal Khmer Rouge who believe that in order to build a new Communist society, they must first destroy the old one. So begins Arn’s horrific odyssey through a Khmer Rouge work camp, training as a child soldier and eventual escape to the United States. He quickly learns that showing emotion can be deadly: “I make my eye blank. You show you care, you die. You show fear, you die. You show nothing, maybe you live.†But while he finds physical safety, will he ever be able to forget the friends and family he was forced to leave behind? “…after all the thing I been through, now being rescue is something I also have to survive.†This true story of heroism and fortitude was related by Arn himself to the award-winning author Patricia McCormick, who wove his words into a fictionalized account of real events. The result is a harrowing but ultimately uplifting narrative that demonstrates humanity’s enduring tendency towards hope, even in the darkest of circumstances. I was completely undone by the simplicity and power of this book, couldn’t stop thinking about it for DAYS and already anticipate that it will be wearing several shiny metals on it’s cover come YA book award season. In other words, an absolute must read! (To see an interview between Arn and McCormick and to find out more about the Khmer Rouge and the Cambodian Killing Fields, click here)
Category: AAAA: Asian + Asian American Alliance
Stories that center around the Asian (South Asian, East Asian and Pacific Islander) and Asian American teen experience for everyone.
Habibi by Craig Thompson
One of my favorite books of all time is Craig Thompson’s transcendent adolescent love story Blankets. I feel as though I have preached the gospel of that gorgeous graphic novel to thousands of friends, colleagues and students–probably until they were sick of hearing about it! Thompson’s latest opus is also about love, a fervent love between a girl and a boy that morphs several times during their lifetimes. When Dodola and Zam first meet in a slave market as children in a fantastical Middle Eastern world that includes both oil pipelines and medieval camel caravans, they are lost and afraid. After escaping the slavers and fleeing to the desert, they lead a charmed but lonely existence on a boat that has been mysteriously beached on miles of sand, where Dodola entertains Zam with stories of queens, heroes and warriors from the Quran and the Bible. At first Dodola acts as a mother to toddler Zam, though she is little more than a child herself. But as Zam grows, their relationship becomes more like that of squabbling siblings. Until the day that Zam witnesses the terrible thing that Dodola must trade away in exchange for their food from the brutish men in the caravans. He cannot forget what he has seen, and soon his feelings for Dodola begin to change into something lustful and wild that he doesn’t understand. So he runs away to the bustling city, searching for a way to relieve his forbidden thoughts, while Dodola is left frantically searching for him before she is stolen away by bandits and forced to become a member of the Sultan’s harem. Through their mutual trials and struggles, they never forget their life on the little boat and never stop looking for each other in the faces of strangers that pass by. It is many years before they meet again, and they each have been drastically changed by their circumstances. Will their hearts recognize each other? Is there a possibility that their love can survive under the harsh laws of a judgmental society that condemns them both? This lushly illustrated and deeply felt graphic novel is both hard to read and hard to stop reading. Thompson is clearly in love with Arabic script and design, which dance sinuously through the panels, and his interweaving of Christian and Arabic mythology, showing their ultimate similarities instead of their often harped upon differences is masterful. The story and art took Thompson six years to complete, and it shows on every dazzlingly detailed page. But while it is a beautifully rendered story of love, faith and perseverance, it is also a sad story of sexual abuse, dominance, misogyny and guilt that is probably best for older teens and the adults in their lives. Extraordinary.
Devil’s Kiss by Sarwat Chadda
You think your after school job sucks? Try being fifteen-year-old Billi SanGreal for a day. After facing down mean girls in the cafeteria and sleeping through most of her classes, Billi has to go home to her London flat, don some chain mail, and head out into the dark to stake some undead with her hard bitten dad. See, Billi is the daughter of one of the last remaining members of the fabled Knights Templar, a mysterious society of Christian crusaders dating back to the 1100’s. Originally a monastic order of impoverished knights who ferried pilgrims back and forth to the Holy Land, the rag-tag modern day Order defends humanity against the supernatural forces of darkness, including vampires, werewolves and the occasional fallen angel. In spite of being a pretty smooth hand with a sword, Billi is sick of cleaning blood off her jeans and landing in detention for late homework because her driven, distant father thinks decapitating demons is more important than long division. Plus, her half Pakistani & Muslim heritage make her feel like a square peg in a round hole in the traditionally Christian fighting force. Tired of the politics and pain that come from being a Templar, Billi tries to leave the Order, but finds herself sucked back in when she discovers that her lapse in judgment concerning a tall, dark and handsome maniacal stranger may have resulted in the Tenth Plague being released on the greater UK. Equally distracting is the fact that her childhood friend Kay has returned from Oracle training in Jerusalem and somehow managed to turn into a total hottie while he was gone. Now Billi has to find a way to mend her relationship with her forbidding father, figure out if Kay is the Templar for her and somehow stop the Angel of Death from frying all of the world’s firstborn. It’s a tall order, but if anyone can do it, Billi can. Move over, Buffy Summers. Billi SanGreal eats vampires for breakfast. What else ya got? This creepy, cheesetastic gore-fest mixes history, fantasy and horror in a compulsively page turning way that will have you screaming for a sequel long before you hit the final chapter. (And yes, there is one coming.) Did I roll my eyes (okay, more than a few times) over some of the over-the-top bits? Sure. But Billi’s showdowns with various versions of The Unholy are truly terrifying and the book’s fighting sequences frightfully well choreographed. This is a must-read for The Da Vinci Code
Absolutely Maybe by Lisa Yee
Sixteen-year-old Maybelline Chestnut has a big problem (bigger than the fact that she’s been named after a brand of mascara) and that problem is spelled M-O-M. “You’ve heard of serial murderers? My mother’s a serial marryer. It’s a disease. The husbands get blinded by the big blonde hair and the big boobs and big personality. There’s so much big stuff that they never notice the little cracks in the marriage until it’s too late.†Maybe’s former pageant-winning mother has been married six times, and when lucky #7 tries to give Maybe a grope, she knows it’s time to strike out on her own. She takes off to Los Angeles to find her biological father, her only clue a blurry photograph scammed from one of her mother’s dusty hatboxes. Accompanied by her best friends Ted (a short statured baby-mogul-in-training) and Hollywood (a tall, gangly aspiring filmmaker), Maybe at first finds California as intoxicating as she imagined it being back in boring old Florida. But as her money runs out and her friends establish lives of their own, L.A. seems meaner and colder, and Maybe despairs of ever completing her DNA mission. She is granted a reprieve from sleeping in the back of Hollywood’s car when she scores a job on taco truck and is supplied with a bed and three squares a day by an unlikely guardian angel. However, her bio-dad is still at large, and an inevitable confrontation with her confused and angry mom looms large. Will Maybe solve the mystery of where she comes from? Or will she be forced to return to Kissimmee broke and unsatisfied? This fast, fun read reminded me of Sonya Sones’ One of Those Hideous Books Where the Mother Dies,
The Eternal Smile by Gene Luen Yang & Derek Kirk Kim
Dashing young Duncan is either a handsome knight trying to win the heart of a princess by relieving the dreaded Frog King of his head, OR just another downtrodden teen trying to get by in the projects of Oakland, as his depressed mom dates one jerk after another. Greedy Gran’Pa Greenbax is either a latter day Scrooge McDuck-like animated TV star, OR just a little freshwater frog who’s been used and abused by cruel humans. Meek Janet is either a stately Nigerian princess, OR just another cubicle-dwelling office drone. No one is quite who they seem to be in this lushly illustrated, full-color collaboration between two of the best author/illustrators in the comic biz. But no matter what their circumstances, each character manages to discover hidden stores of bravery, hope and optimism that help clear away the dark clouds of anger, fear and pride. And what is the Eternal Smile? Well, it’s either the face of God or a hole in the ceiling, and the only person who can decide that is YOU, dear reader! Award winning authors and illustrators Gene Luen Yang and Derek Kirk Kim will both blow and bend your mind with these three quirky, offbeat Twilight Zone-meets-Pushing Daisies short stories about love, life and the power of the imagination. I didn’t even have to get to the last page to know that what I was holding in my hands was pure graphic novel gold.
Tales from Outer Suburbia by Shaun Tan
Deep sea divers. Little leaf men. Suburban water buffalo and lost dugongs. Giant mechanical penguins and getaway cars filled with turtles. All these arresting, ingenious images and so much more await the lucky reader who enters Tan’s whimsical world of “Outer Suburbia.†Not quite a graphic novel, not quite a picture book, this strange amalgamation of pictures and prose (some only a page long) reads like a collection of colorful and creative detritus Tan discovered in the crooked corners of his superior imagination that he then picked up, dusted off, and polished into small, perfect gems. “Eric,†which chronicles the adventures of a small exchange student who marvels at the complexity of his host’s home, will immediately bring to mind Tan’s gorgeously wrought The Arrival, his wordless homage to the immigrant spirit. Others gently emphasize themes of hope, peace and bravery in the face of adversity. Like “Alert But Not Alarmed,†where a neighborhood finds a way to humorously re-purpose the missiles the government requires them to keep in their backyards. 
Or “No Other Country,†where a family, fed up with the dry, arid environment of their new home, discovers a lush hidden courtyard that exists only in that sweet geographical spot, giving them cause to appreciate a place they used to loathe. In this celebratory season where I am part of a community that often argues over competing holiday symbols, I was especially moved by “The Nameless Holiday.†Here, Tan describes in both words and pictures a holiday that moves around the calendar and is characterized by everyone choosing the object they love most. These treasures are then left hanging on the television antenna as an offering for a giant reindeer, who carefully carries them away, making the participants feel special and chosen instead of regretful and sad. Depending on how you feel or where you are when you open this wonderful tome, the stories will seem sad, happy, hopeful or tragic. But they all share one thing in common—they are born of Tan’s unique and singular vision and therefore are simply not to be missed.
Emiko Superstar by Mariko Tamaki and Steve Rolston
Emi is an Everyteen on a hunt for some artistic inspiration to pull her out of her summer-job doldrums. When she sees performance artist Poppy make a scene at the mall while advertising the “Factory,†a local open mic venue, she knows she’s found her muse. Poppy, with her multi-colored dreads and multiple piercings, is everything Emi is not—loud, brash, beautiful and totally uninhibited. With Poppy as her motivation, Emi finds the dubious courage to do things she never thought she’d do—even stealing the journal of a woman she baby sits for, and using her private thoughts as a spoken word act. Soon “Emiko Superstar†is the belle of the Warhol-esque Factory. Deep down, Emiko feels guilty for using someone else’s life as fodder for her performance. But if she drops her act, will she be forced to give up all her fabulous Factory friends and go back to being just boring Emi again? It will take a kind stranger, a timely 911 call, and a torn paper heart to make a-MAH-zing Emiko realize that good old Emi wasn’t so bad after all. This thoughtful, smart story about finding yourself after your fifteen minutes of fame has passed reminds me of Cecil Castellucci’s groovy Plain Janes (another arts-full MINX title) and the work of Derek Kirk Kim. And though it looks like Emiko may be one of short-lived DC imprint MINX’s swan songs, hopefully artists and authors will continue to produce and promote more girl-rrific graphic novels for us fangirls who still need an occasional rriot grrl fix!
The Arrival by Shaun Tan
Imagine being far from home, in a new city where you don’t speak the language and nothing is familiar. Boat-shaped flying machines ferry people to and from work beneath flights of origami birds. Oddly shaped fruits and vegetables are sold from compartments in a giant market wall, and every person you meet has a small animal guide to accompany them, each looking like it sprang fully formed from a Hieronymus Bosch painting. You miss your home. You miss your family. But your job is to work hard and fit in here so that you can eventually make a new life for yourself and those who depend on you. Living as I do in a city of immigrants, I’ve seen & heard the “coming to America†story a million times before. But never like this. There is a magically real gloss on Shaun Tan’s sepia-toned wordless graphic novel that raises the classic “stranger in a strange land†plot to a fresh new height. As the story begins, it would be easy to mistake it for an Ellis Island epic. But it soon becomes abundantly clear that Tan is taking us on a trip to a land none of us has ever seen before, giving us a chance to truly understand the immigrant experience, as we the readers flounder right alongside the weary protagonist, trying to make sense of the beautiful, dizzying landscape Tan has created. So gorgeously illustrated and imagined, you’ll want to own your own copy so you can look at it again and again.
I Rode A Horse of Milk White Jade by Diane Lee Wilson
American Born Chinese by Gene Luen Yang
Jin Wang is the new kid at Mayflower Elementary. He is one of only three other Asian American kids, including shy Suzy Nakamura and brainy Wei-Chen Sun. Though Jin is friends with Suzy and Wei-Chen, he wishes he were as popular as blond-haired, blue-eyed Greg, who seems to have everything, including the attention of Amelia Harris, the girl Jin has a crush on. But when Greg asks a special “favor” of Jin that involves “staying with his own kind,” Jin decides he’s has enough of other people’s assumptions of who he is and where he comes from. Channeling the strength and cunning of legendary Chinese trickster, Monkey King, Jin finds a way to break free of negative Asian stereotypes and learn to be comfortable in his own skin. This brightly colored, charismatic graphic novel is rich in wisdom and folklore, and ripe with humor and pop culture references. You don’t have to be American Born Chinese to appreciate the universal message of acceptance, self-esteem, and identity in Gene Yang’s thought-provoking and multi-layered story.
Girls for Breakfast by David Yoo
Why can’t Nick Park score? Is it because he’s just too desperate around the female objects of his desire, and has been since he discovered Playboy in third grade? Is it because he lives on uncool Summit Road while all the popular kids live up in the tony suburb of Renfield Hills? Is it because he lacks the He-Man pectorals of his fellow varsity soccer players no matter how many push-ups he does? (I mean, GOD, he’s up to 50!) Or could it be that everyone thinks he is a “whitewashed Banana”—white on the inside and yellow (Korean) on the outside? Nick’s secret fear is that his very Korean-ness in the lily white suburb of Renfield Connecticut is what’s keeping him from realizing his dream of getting past third base with a girl – ANY girl. Deeply funny and painfully realistic, David Yoo’s novel does what Melvin Burgess’s flashy Doing It fell short of—gives readers the true inner life of an adolescent boy, warts and all. It isn’t pretty, and it isn’t at all comfortable, but man oh man, is it compulsively readable. A+++!
Red Scarf Girl: A Memior of the Cultural Revolution by Ji-Li Jiang
This is one of the best books I’ve ever come across, and I’m giving it a big pump-up here because I want it to be read. It’s hard for us living in the United States to imagine a society where too much intelligence is considered dangerous and being part of an upper-class family is a crime. But that is exactly how it was in the late 1960’s and early 1970’s in China. Ji-Li was a pre-teen when Chairman Mao came into power, and watched as the Communist Party attacked the upper class and exalted the lower class in an attempt to make everyone equal. Her life was lived in fear of the Red Guards, who searched upper class homes for signs of the “four olds”–old ideas, old customs, old culture and old habits. If they found any symbol of the four olds such as ceremonial robes or family heirlooms, it was destroyed and members of the family could be imprisoned. It was a frightening time, and even though Ji-Li tried to be a good Communist and embrace the ideals of Chairman Mao, she couldn’t forget her intelligence, her heritage, of the fact that her father was imprisoned just because his family owned land. You’ll definitely have a new appreciation for the freedom you have as an American teen of the 90’s after reading this powerful memoir.
Same Difference and Other Stories by Derek Kirk Kim
Graphic novels are a format, not a genre. So even though these melancholy autobiographical short stories are told in illustrated panels, they really belong on my Slacker list. Kim pens short, poignant pieces about love, loss, fear and failing in your insecure twenties. Common experiences like living off of Raman noodles and regretting that crush that you never came clean to from high school will ring almost painfully true to the Gen X and Y crowd. Full of laughter tinged with sadness, Same Difference provides a pretty accurate window into that period of your life when you’re almost a grown-up, but not quite.