American Born Chinese pt.1

My initial impression of this book was "This is kind of a weird book to be reading, it looks like it's for kids." However, as I continued reading it I got sucked in and couldn't stop. I ended up reading the whole thing in one sitting. So, I'm going to try to only talk about the first half even though I know what happens throughout the entire book. I liked how there was a transition between three completely different stories. The one that I found the most interesting was the boy, Jin Wang, who moved to a new school and his trials of fitting in with that environment. I chose a few panels from the this story to focus on in order to really analyze it piece by piece. Pages 27-29 are a great example of multimodal learning. This scene reveals Jin's experience in the waiting room of the Chinese Herbalist his mother would visit for her allergies. He describes how he listened to the sound of the abacus the Herbalist's wife used to calculate bills. The next panel focuses on the abacus only and "click, clack, clack" is written across the panel. When I read this I could definitely here it immediately. When she stopped to ask him what he wanted to be when he grew up it stopped and picked right back up when the conversation ended. The first panel on page 29 was the most dramatic overall. The "click, clack, clack" stopped a few panels before, she reveals that she has a secret and then.....there is a close up of here face along with a black background to had intensity. What she is saying is very important. It even resonates into the next panel where little Jin is just sitting a staring. You can almost here a nervous "gulp." In the last panel, the Herbalist's wife just goes back to working on her abacus like nothing ever happened.