Gene Luen Yang – Page 3 – Cannonball Read 17

I’ve hated sports ever since I was a little kid.

Dragon Hoops by Gene Luen Yang

June 8, 2020 by vel veeter Leave a Comment

Gene Yang is most well known for his American Born Chinese and more recently Boxers/Saints. This new book reveals something about him that I didn’t know, that he was a high school English teacher for many years (until a recent move to comics writing full time). He worked for a school in California called Bishop O’Dowd and spends this book chronicling the 2014 basketball season when the Dragons found themselves with the number one recruit in the country (a mercurial and inconsistent ranking system depending on who and […]

From two masters of the graphic novel

The Eternal Smile: Three Stories by Gene Luen Yang

January 20, 2020 by BlackRaven Leave a Comment

My weekend reading included three graphic novels, and while two were “intense” they were not deeply intense like The Eternal Smile: Three Stories was. This book takes three similar themed, but very different stories and punches you in the face. At first you are seeing the reality of the story. Things seem straight forward at first: A young man battles the “big bads” of the world, wins maiden fair and should live happily ever after. A greedy, cigar chomping frog tries to find that one […]

Shooting Stars

Dragon Hoops by Gene Luen Yang

November 18, 2019 by BlackRaven Leave a Comment

Dragon Hoops was not only a graphic novel, but a graphic novel by Gene Luen Yang. And not just only any old graphic novel by him, but a First Second published one. All the big points were hit. The only thing I was not looking forward to was going to be the basketball aspect. But I figured that since Check, Please! by Ngozi Ukazu was not really about hockey, that maybe this was not really about basketball. Oh, it is about basketball. But it is […]

Smackdown! Video Games vs. Medical School!

Level Up by Gene Luen Yang

September 6, 2019 by BlackRaven Leave a Comment

Off and on in my graphic novel and First Second researching, Level Up by Gene Luen Yang has come up. Yang is the author of American Born Chinese, the Boxers and Saints series as well as numerous other books and graphic novels. I had a passing interest in this book, but it was not first on my to be read list. Thursday night I was walking home, my path taking me past the library. I had a few minutes, went to their young adult graphic […]

Four-Girl sees the other side of The Boxer Rebellion

Boxer & Saints V02 Saints by Gene Luen Yang

April 15, 2019 by BlackRaven Leave a Comment

A couple of spoilers are below. Saints is the second book in the two book graphic series, Boxer & Saints, by Gene Luen Yang. While it is shorter than Boxers, it still packs a lot of story. However, I would have liked to have seen more of back story of Four-Girl (or Vibiana as she will become known). We see how she is the unwanted fourth-girl of her family and how she defies the odds by living and having to deal with a strict, old-school […]

Little Bao’s Big Adventure takes some messy turns

Boxers & Saints #01 by Gene Luen Yang

April 5, 2019 by BlackRaven Leave a Comment

A few weeks ago, I was returning books to the library and was told a book I wanted was in stock. I went to the section but when there, realized I had remembered incorrectly where the book I wanted had been shelved. I had found myself in the graphic novel section instead. As I was getting ready to look for it in another section, I happened to see Boxers #01 of the Boxers & Saints two-book series. Without thinking, I grabbed it and checked it […]

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