American Born Chinese #[nn]

Gene Luen Yang's *American Born Chinese* arrives from First Second in 2006 wearing its Michael Printz Award medal proudly — a fitting signal of the thoughtful, layered storytelling within. The sun-drenched yellow cover features a young boy clutching a backpack, his expression caught somewhere between determination and unease, set against softly rendered clouds and mountain peaks that evoke classical Chinese landscape painting. It's a deceptively simple image that manages to hold real emotional weight, perfectly reflecting the *New York Times Book Review*'s praise for Yang's "youthful tale with something new to say about American youth.