Module 13 – Smile

image from www.amazon.com

Telgemeier, R. (2010) Smile. New York, NY: Graphix.

Summary —

Reina Telgemeier’s graphic novel Smile is an autobiographical account of her troubles with orthodontics.  Coming home from a girl scout meeting one night in her sixth grade year, Raina and couple of the girls raced to her doorstep, but Raina trips over the curb and lands face first in the concrete.  She loses one of her front teeth, while the other is shoved deeply into her gums.  Her dentist attempts to reattach the busted tooth, but the procedure is a failure, since both teeth are sunk higher into her mouth.  They try using braces and headgear to pull down the two teeth, but that doesn’t work. The next procedure they try is to remove the two front teeth and replace them with a retainer that has prosthetics for her missing teeth.  Just about the time Raina is getting used to the retainer, they move on to the next step: using braces to move her remaining teeth into the gap created by the lost two front teeth.  This next phase is especially painful, as each time she has her braces tightened, her whole mouth aches. In addition to physically hurting, Raina’s orthodontic travails take their toll on the self-esteem of a young girl trying to navigate her new emotions for Sean and Sammy.  But by the time Raina hits eighth grade, she breaks off with the girls she’d been friends with from elementary and makes new friends, more in line with her interests in art and choir. Surrounded by new kids that don’t try to pull her down, she finds herself more self-confident and is better able to cope with the long-term effects of her lost two teeth.  Eventually, her other teeth are moved into place and she can have her braces removed.  At first, she’s afraid the other kids will see how weird her teeth are, but she soon discovers that it’s all in her head.  Her friends think her teeth look fine. The book ends with a group picture of Raina and her new friends at a school dance, where she finally has the courage to smile for the camera.

Lucien’s thoughts —

Telgemeier pulls double duty in this book, both writing and illustrating this wonderful Eisner-winning graphic novel. I was impressed by how deftly she combined her text and images to tell her story of orthodontic procedure after procedure to attempt to restore her mouth.  You feel for Raina as she faces each new step along the way and can sympathize for the challenges her mouth cause to her self-esteem.  Although she manages to come through it stronger and more self-confident, it was a difficult journey full of self-doubt and pain.  I think this book is a great novel to give to kids who have to have braces or other orthodontic work done.  They can relate to the protagonist and see that there is an end in sight, even if it’s several years down the road.  This is also a great book to share with people who have a narrow view of graphic novels, expecting superheroes and spandex. Raina is my new favorite heroine, sans cape.  Telgemeier captures the ups and downs of those awkward years between elementary and high school in this pleasantly quick read. I look forward to her next graphic novel, Drama.

Librarian's use—

As many kids in middle school have to have braces, retainers, or other various orthodontia, I think this graphic novel is a great discussion starter for kids to talk about their dentist stories.  As Telgemeier writes in the Author’s Note, “I have a lot of faith and trust in dentistry, and how it can improve people’s lives.” The novel can give kids the confidence to talk about a subject that is often painful to discuss: one’s self-image as a result of orthodontics.  Brace face, metal mouth, jaws, and other countless insults are based on kids’ fears of looking different than their peers.  It’s great to have a resource that paints a positive portrait of dental work.

Other reviews —

Just, J. (2011). Smile. Horn book magazine, 87 (1), 18.

It feels like we need a new word for a new form—gremoir?—but until then, graphic novel memoir will have to do. Smile contains fictional elements but is based on a real-life accident that makes riveting reading. Above all, it is about a down-to-earth girl named Raina who has to survive middle school and figure out who her friends really are.  There are many books that deal with bullying, but perhaps few that kids, especially girls, will recognize the way they will recognize it here,  Using the skillful hallmarks of comic style, with speech bubbles and exclamation points, Telgemeier tells an enormously satisfying story about a girl defeating her own self-doubt and coming into her own.

Stevenson, D. (2010). Smile. Bulletin of the center for children’s books, 63 (7), 306.

This graphic-style memoir focuses on the author's years of adolescent transition, from sixth grade to ninth grade; they're marked not just by the usual awkwardness but also by cosmetic trials after she savages her two front teeth in a fall and undergoes extensive dental and orthodontic work. Raina's experiences are otherwise generally reflective of her age—she crushes on and is crushed on, spends time with good friends and not-so-good friends—and they're steeped in her era, with her experiencing the release of Disney's Little Mermaid and the 1989 San Francisco earthquake. The chronicle sometimes seems a little more like a long anecdote than a shaped narrative, but it touches on enough common and emotionally accessible experience for reader empathy. Telgemeier has a fine eye—or memory—for detail, whether it be the thrill of grossing everybody out with a retainer containing a pair of false teeth, the way ostensible friends ramp teasing up into bullying, or the preteen predilection for taking everything to heart. The art has a friendly, curvy-lined informality reminiscent of Lynn Johnston's in For Better or For Worse, and the design is conventional, even a little staid, but easy-viewing. The very ordinariness of Raina's experience makes her an accessible Everygirl, and young readers will find in her a plausible mirror—or crystal ball—for their own adolescent experiences.

Module 5 – American Born Chinese

image from www.amazon.com

Yang, G.L. (2006) American Born Chinese. New York, NY: First Second Books.

Summary –

American Born Chinese, a graphic novel by Gene Luen Yang, and winner of the Printz Award and Eisner Award, interweaves three major story arc into one.  First of all, it tells the story of the Monkey King, a character of Chinese folk tales, who is determined to prove to all the other deities that he is The Great Sage, and Equal of Heaven. His hubris attracts the attention of Tze-You-Tzuh, “He who is”, the master of all and creator of the universe.  Imprisoned under a mountain of rocks for 500 years, the Monkey King eventual learns to accept his nature and be happy to live as a monkey. After he accepts his role in life, he becomes the disciple of an itinerant monk named Wong Lai-Tsao. Secondly, it tells the story of Jin Wang, a second generation Chinese immigrant trying to fit in at a middle school in the suburbs, where the only other Asian kid in his class is Suzy Nakamura. Eventually, another boy from Taiwan, Wie-Chen Sun, joins his class and the two slowly become best friends. The third story is that of Danny and Cousin Chin-Kee. Danny is a blond haired, blue eyed American teen, and his cousin Chin-Kee is portrayed using every possible horrible racist stereotype of a Chinese immigrant.  Chin-Kee’s crazy antics embarrass Danny so much that he’s had to move from school to school to avoid all the taunts from his fellow classmates. The three stories finally intersect at the end in an interesting plot twist (which I hate to reveal for those who have not read the book). But in all, the story is a great lesson in learning to accept yourself for what you are, regardless of what others may think of you.

Lucien’s thoughts –

Ever since this book won an Eisner Award, it’s been on my to-do list.  I’m glad this class gave me the opportunity to read it, since it is a lovely book.  The three parallel story lines (each a slightly different genre: folk-tale, realistic fiction, and satire) are all told in simple language and beautifully illustrated.  The writing is clear and engaging, and the main story of Jin Wang’s struggles fitting in at school are universal: he has to deal with bullies, his feelings for a girl in his class, and his desire to fit in.  While the novel is particularly interesting for immigrant readers for its intriguing exploration into the challenges of cultural assimilation, it’s a story that all can enjoy and learn from.  The story of the Monkey King is told mostly as a parable for learning to accept yourself, although I found the message to be a bit didactic. Nevertheless, I enjoyed the book quite a bit and think this graphic novel belongs in every library that services an ESL population.  Yang’s novel of self-acceptance and the power of friendship is well worth a read.

Librarian’s use –

This is a graphic novel that talks about the value of friendship.  One activity that comes to mind is asking help from a school’s art teacher to have the audience make a comic book illustrating how they met their best friend. Two things that can be highlighted are the conventions of using square boxes to provide narrator’s voice and word balloons to give the characters' speech. They can then tell a story in their own words and pictures about their best friend, focusing on what text belongs in a narrator’s box and what text belongs as characters' speech.

Other reviews –

Blasingame, J. (2007). American born Chinese. English journal , 97 (1), 99.

Yang's book is a seamless blend of three genres: a Chinese fable, a realistic/problem novel, and a parody/satire. That a graphic novel can successfully envelop three distinct genres proves the point Kristin Fletcher-Spear, Merideth Jenson-Benjamin, and Teresa Copeland make in their ALAN Review article "The Truth about Graphic Novels: A Format, Not a Genre" (32.2: 37-44). By using facial expressions and body gestures, and by varying the angle of perspective, Yang provides information that goes beyond what the print text can offer. The format allows for visual clues such as hairstyles: When Jin Wang's social ostracism becomes nearly unbearable, he adopts the hairstyle of his school's alpha male, Greg. Danny has the same hairstyle, which is a subtle suggestion of his true identity, revealed at the novel's end.

American Born Chinese is both comical and heart-wrenching. Yang successfully pokes fun at ignorant teachers who cannot get Asian students' names right, who assume that Chinese social customs entail all kinds of bizarre practices, and who think anyone with an Asian name must be a newly arrived immigrant. Much of the story illustrates the hurt and harm done to kids who are from minority ethnic backgrounds and cultural heritages. Jin's classmates are forever making racial jokes and figuratively and literally slipping in ethnic slurs.

The pacing has the quickness afforded by a graphic format, facilitating and adding to the reading. Yang is not only a brilliant storyteller but also a gifted cartoonist, and the synergy of these two talents makes American Born Chinese more than it could have been as just a print-text book.

Fu, B. (2007). American born Chinese, by Gene Luen Yang. MELUS, 32 (3), 274-276.

Nominated for the 2006 National Book Award in the Young People's Literature category, American Born Chinese is mature in artistic design and visually engaging. Yet what makes it especially appealing to both young and mature readers is its narrative depth. Juxtaposing three seemingly unrelated story lines, the novel opens with a retelling of the story of the Monkey King, the renowned mythic hero in Chinese folklore. The second tale, a Bildungsroman, illustrates how Jin Wang... struggles to survive exclusion and racist bullying in his search for an identity in a predominantly white suburban school. In the third narrative thread, Chin-Kee, a deluxe combo of the worst racial stereotypes involving Asian Americans, pays an annual visit to his cousin Danny in America, turning the latter's school life into a nightmare. By the end of the novel, however, the three separate tales are cleverly woven together in a dramatic climax, highlighting the work's focus on ethnic self-acceptance and empowerment...

If the Monkey King serves as a source of cultural empowerment in Jin Wang's personal development, Chin-Kee's character appears to be the monkey's evil double. He is provocatively repulsive and hilariously funny at the same time. An intruder into the American classroom, he sings "She Bang, She Bang" (a la the well-known American Idol contestant William Hung) while dancing grotesquely in a traditional Chinese dress on a desk. His spittle which is rumored to have spread SARS around the school-and his home-made "Clispy Flied Cat Gizzards wiff Noodle" (114) make him an ultimate spectacle of racial degradation. Yet he is also wickedly smart and subversive, reminding the reader of the Monkey King himself. The blatant racial stereotype that Chin-Kee stands for has long denied Asians a place in American culture. Yet, in Yang's novel, when Chin-Kee finally reveals his true identity, he emerges as the epitome of transformation and subversion.

Song, M. H. (2010). “How good it is to be a monkey”: Comics, racial formation, and American Born Chinese. Mosaic: A journal for the interdisciplinary study of literature, 43 (1), 73-92.

Gene Luen Yang's American Born Chinese demonstrates the difficulty of following the development of Asian American racial formations. It does so through the skillful use of its medium, comics, prompting readers to consider how much the meaning of race has changed, in what ways, and where this change might lead.

More than any other racial minority in the United States, Asian Americans have found their status as a racial minority complicated by claims of their many apparent economic successes. At the same time, they remain battered by perceptions that they are somehow alien to the nation… Gene Luen Yang's American Born Chinese stands out as particularly focused on this problem. In this work, past and present ways of thinking about Asian Americans collapse into each other. As a result, readers are encouraged to ponder how much race thinking has changed, in what ways, and where this change might be leading. American Born Chinese prompts such a response by employing the unique qualities of its medium, comics, to reflect back to the reader the difficulty of following the development of Asian American racial formations... Yang stands out for his willingness to bend the conventions of genre storytelling to contribute to his realist aspirations. Yang's work is thus situated between the twin poles of realism and genre fiction that currently seem to divide creative work in this medium in the United States, resulting in narratives that appeal to, and are suitable for, both mature and young adult readers. At the same time, because his works are longer, they have more room to tell fairly involved stories and to develop a theme at length