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I guess I'm the picture book gal of our duo. I was thinking about picture books in which American kids travel to a foreign country, and my favorite one immediately came to mind: Shanghai Messenger by Andrea Cheng, Illustrated by Ed Young.

Shanghai Messenger isn't exactly a picture book. Its audience is closer to middle grades because the story is told in poems, and it captures so beautifully all the different emotions that an eleven-year-old would encounter when visiting a foreign country by herself for the first time.

There are so many themes going on simultaneously: Xiao Mei is half Chinese and half Caucasian, and her grandmother's family in Shanghai invites her for a visit. Xiao Mei must first decide if she wants to accept the invitation.

In China
will people stare
at my eyes
with green flecks
like Dad's?
Will they ask
why didn't Grandmother
teach me Chinese?

What I love about Cheng's poems is how amazingly true, and how strong of an emotional impact her few words create. I can feel Xiao Mei's apprehension as she leaves the US, and when she first arrives in China. Then, each of her family members she meets in Shanghai has a character that is typically Chinese while uniquely their own. And though I am not of mixed heritage, I could also relate to how Xiao Mei feels like an "other" in China. Being American is enough.

In America
everyone thinks I'm Chinese
even though my dad's not,
and here too
people stare at me
in the street.
I guess Max and I
are half and half
everywhere
in the world.

Xiao Mei's relatives take her sightseeing, shopping for a computer, to the market to buy vegetables and a live duck for dinner. She meets ladies practicing Tai Chi in a park. She befriends a little boy and visits the school where her great Uncle taught. She and her relatives sing songs from The Lion King in English and Chinese all at once. Every experience is exquisitely detailed in spare language, but I can feel exactly what Xiao Mei feels.

By the end of the week, Xiao Mei now has to say good-bye to this big new family she has met.

I wish they could come with me.
We could fill a whole row
or two
on the plane
and share spicy peas
and watch the movie
and sleep.
The flight attendant
leads me down the ramp.
I turn
and uncles and aunties and cousins
wave
and disappear
in a crowd
of black hair.

I haven't read many graphic novels, so I can't speak from a comparative point of view. However, I did like American Born Chinese for a few reasons. First, it weaves three different story lines into one book, and I'm a sucker for that sort of thing. The main storyline involves Jin Wang, a Chinese-American boy who, despite being born in the U.S. and being completely American culturally, doesn't fit in at his new school and reluctantly befriends the only kid there who is newer than him: Wei-chen, a boy who has just arrived from Taiwan.

This plot does not exactly cover new ground. Most books about the immigrant, or second-generation American, experience involve the same themes. However, Yang's graphic depiction of the experience is more poignant than the usual prose treatments, and the other two stories act as mirrors that reflect their own voices upon Jin's story, giving it new meaning. Interspersed between episodes of Jin's life are segments from the Chinese Monkey King legend and a "TV sitcom" featuring Chin-Kee, a stereotyped caricature of a Chinaman. The three very different depictions play off each other, highlighting and emphasizing what each cannot say on itsown.

For example, Jin is always on some level embarrassed by the Chineseness of his new friend, but it is not until we see Chin-Kee behaving badly that we understand exactly what Jin is afraid of. At the same time, we can see that the brave and quick-witted Monkey King is also an image that the Chinese have of themselves. The two cannot be separated so easily. American Born Chinese works because it is a graphic novel. Not only does the art enhance the narratives and the ties between them, giving new voice to the genre of "outsider" fiction, but Yang's fresh subject matter changes the graphic novel world as well. I think the book is well worth the read.

American Born Chinese by Gene Yang

I have a soft spot for books about people who forge unlikely friendships, and when looking for multicultural books, I really like seeing children of different ethnicities in these roles. I think children are so used to putting things and people into categories that it makes more of an impact when storybooks remind us that things or people don't always need to stay within their own boundaries.

I also have a weakness for books about music and musicians (especially violinists or singers, since I can relate).

Across the Alley by Richard Michelson and illustrated by E.B. Lewis quietly charmed its way into my heart; it has all these great things, and more. Abe and Willie are two boys that live in neighboring apartment buildings. Their bedroom windows happen to face each other, so they become best friends-- but only at night.

Abe is Jewish, and Willie is black. They don't play together during the day. But after bedtime, Willie tells Abe about his baseball games and Abe tells Willie about his violin lessons. Soon, they are swapping gloves and violins through the window across the alley. The friends find common interests, and discover that even their families have things in common: Abe's grandfather was imprisoned in a concentration camp during the war, and Willie's great-grandfather was a slave in the South.

One night, they are caught when Abe's Grandpa walks in to see Abe winding up a pitch and Willie across in the other building, holding Abe's violin. Abe is frozen with fear and guilt, but Grandpa surprises them both, and even recruits Willie's dad into a scheme to bring out the best talents of both boys.

This book reminded me very much of Henry and the Kite Dragon by Bruce Edward Hall and William Low. Across the Alley is more low-key in the storytelling style and the size of the conflict, but both very effectively show without preaching how friendships and talents can transcend our physical differences.

Across the Alley by Richard Michelson, illustrated by E.B. Lewis