04 Jul / The Legend of Auntie Po by Shing Yin Khor [in Shelf Awareness]
The year is 1885 and Mei and her father, Ah Hao, work in a Sierra Nevada logging camp in this mesmerizing middle-grade debut by author/illustrator Shing Yin Khor (The American Dream?).
The first few pages of Khor’s clever graphic novel delineates underlying racial disparities: “Every night, my father and I feed a hundred lumberjacks”; “We also feed forty Chinese workers who do not receive board.” Mr. Andersen has been their boss for 11 years and his daughter, Bee, is Mei’s best friend. But when racial tensions outside the camp escalate into vicious Chinese-targeted violence, Mr. Andersen – despite his insistence that Mei and her father are “like family” – fires his Chinese crew, including Ah Hao. Mei remains with Bee for safety, and both girls dream of different futures. Even though she was born in the U.S., Mei is well-aware of her limited options because she’s Chinese American. Telling stories sustains Mei (and her young friends), so she weaves expansive yarns that feature the behemoth “mother of all loggers,” Auntie Po, and her blue buffalo, Pei Pei.
“If history failed us, fiction will have to restore us,” Khor writes in an author’s note. Historical erasure of Asian Pacific Americans is not new, despite a documented presence predating the founding of the United States (Khor’s meticulous research includes a helpful bibliography at book’s end). The inviting digital pencil and watercolor art – especially affecting in capturing changing and reacting expressions – significantly elevates the nuanced narrative. In this reclamatory and illuminating graphic novel, Khor underscores the healing power of sharing stories.
Discover: Shing Yin Khor’s middle-grade graphic debut is a mesmerizing reclamation of the Chinese American experience in late-19th-century lumber camps in the Wild West.
Review: “Children’s & Young Adult,” Shelf Awareness, June 29, 2021
Readers: Middle Grade
Published: 2021