Gene Luen Yang
Gene Luen Yang is a Chinese American cartoonist and a high school computer science teacher. His graphic novel American Born Chinese won a Printz Award and an Eisner Award. His blog is S.T.E.M. Comics. He also teaches a creative writing class through Hamline University’s MFA in Writing for Children and Young Adults.
American Born Chinese
This graphic novel alternates three interrelated stories about the problems of young Chinese Americans trying to participate in the popular culture.
Boxers
In China in 1898 bands of foreign missionaries and soldiers roam the countryside, bullying and robbing Chinese peasants. Little Bao has had enough: harnessing the powers of ancient Chinese gods, he recruits an army of Boxers--commoners trained in kung fu who fight to free China from "foreign devils.
Eternal Smile
Presents three short stories in graphic novel format involving the blurred line between fantasy and reality, including an office assistant who falls for an e-mail scam, a frog who finds that just being a frog might be the way to go, and a young prince whose life is not what it seems.
Level Up
Dennis, the son of Chinese immigrants, yearns to play video games like his friends and, upon his strict father's death, becomes obsessed with them but later, realizing how his father sacrificed for him, he chooses a nobler path.
The Promise
Picking up exactly where Avatar: The Last Airbender left off, The Promise takes Aang to a Fire Nation colony in the heart of the Earth Nation, where tensions between neighbors threaten to shatter the world's newfound peace-putting the Avatar on a collision course with one of his closest friends, FireLord Zuko.
The Rift
While planning to celebrate Yangchen's festival, Aang is visited by the spirit of Yangchen herself who leads him to discover a refinery on land sacred to the Airbenders that may be causing the pollution he finds there.
Saints
China, 1898. An unwanted and unwelcome fourth daughter, Four-Girl isn't even given a proper name by her family when she's born. She finally finds friendship-- and a name, Vibiana -- in the most unlikely of places: Christianity. But China is a dangerous place for Christians. The Boxer Rebellion is in full swing, and bands of young men roam the countryside, murdering Westerners and Chinese Christians alike. Torn between her nation and her Christian friends, Vibiana will have to decide where her true loyalties lie-- and whether she is willing to die for her faith.
The Search
What hapened to Fire Lord Zuko's mother? Finding a clue at last, Zuko enlists the aid of Team Avatar--and the most unlikely ally of all--to help uncover the biggest secret of his life.
The Shadow Hero
In the comics boom of the 1940s, a legend was born: the Green Turtle. He solved crimes and fought injustice just like the other comics characters. But this mysterious masked crusader was hiding something more than your run-of-the-mill secret identity: the Green Turtle was the first Asian American super hero. The comic had a short run before lapsing into obscurity, but Gene Luen Yang has revived this character in Shadow Hero, a new graphic novel that creates an origin story for the Green Turtle.
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