Saints (Boxers & Saints #2)

by Gene Luen Yang

Overview

Gene Luen Yang writes, and sometimes draws, comic books and graphic novels. As the Library of Congress’s fifth National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature, he advocates for the importance of reading, especially reading diversely. His graphic novel American Born Chinese, a National Book Award finalist and Printz Award winner, has been adapted into a streaming series on Disney+. His two-volume graphic novel Boxers & Saints won the LA Times Book Prize and was a National Book Award finalist. His nonfiction graphic novel Dragon Hoops received an Eisner Award and a Printz honor. His other comics works include Secret Coders (with Mike Holmes), The Shadow Hero (with Sonny Liew), as well as Superman Smashes the Klan and the Avatar: The Last Airbender series (both with Gurihiru). In 2016, he was named a MacArthur Foundation Fellow.



A New York Times bestseller

China, 1898. An unwanted fourth daughter, Four-Girl isn't even given a proper name by her family. She finds friendship-and a name, Vibiana-in the most unlikely of places: Christianity. But China is a dangerous place for Christians. The Boxer Rebellion is murdering Westerners and Chinese Christians alike. Torn between her nation and her Christian friends, Vibiana will have to decide where her true loyalties lie . . . and whether she is willing to die for her faith.
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Boxers & Saints is a groundbreaking graphic novel in two volumes. This innovative format presents two parallel tales about young people caught up on opposite sides of a violent rift. Saints tells Vibiana's story, and the companion volume, Boxers, tells the story of Little Bao, a young man who joins the Boxer Rebellion. American Born Chinese author Gene Luen Yang brings his trademark magical realism to the complexities of the Boxer Rebellion, and lays bare the universal foundations of extremism, rebellion, and faith.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781596436893
Publisher:	First Second
Publication date:	09/10/2013
Series:	Boxers & Saints Series , #2
Pages:	176
Sales rank:	77,300
Product dimensions:	5.90(w) x 8.40(h) x 0.60(d)
Age Range:	12 - 17 Years

About the Author

Gene Luen Yang writes, and sometimes draws, comic books and graphic novels. As the Library of Congress’s fifth National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature, he advocates for the importance of reading, especially reading diversely. His graphic novel American Born Chinese, a National Book Award finalist and Printz Award winner, has been adapted into a streaming series on Disney+. His two-volume graphic novel Boxers & Saints won the LA Times Book Prize and was a National Book Award finalist. His nonfiction graphic novel Dragon Hoops received an Eisner Award and a Printz honor. His other comics works include Secret Coders (with Mike Holmes), The Shadow Hero (with Sonny Liew), as well as Superman Smashes the Klan and the Avatar: The Last Airbender series (both with Gurihiru). In 2016, he was named a MacArthur Foundation Fellow.

Editorial Reviews

The indie comic artist Gene Luen Yang, a child of Taiwanese immigrants to the United States and an observant Roman Catholic, wrestles with the central ambiguity of colonialism throughout his remarkable set of linked graphic novels, Boxers and Saints…The nuance conveyed in the dialectical design of the companion volumes counteracts the mythmaking that can result from combining history and fable in comic book form.

The New York Times Book Review - Wesley Yang

★ 08/12/2013
In the companion to Boxers, Yang shifts focus to Four-Girl, a mistreated Chinese girl who decides to become a Christian despite the heavy cultural stigma it carries. Although her initial reason for converting is misguided (she’s mainly a fan of the snacks she receives), she eventually embraces the religion and, inspired by visions of Joan of Arc, is spurred to become a “maiden warrior” for God. To prove her faith, Four-Girl (newly christened Vibiana) charges herself with defending Peking, which has become a refuge for foreigners and Christians from the approaching Society of the Righteous and Harmonious Fist. As in Boxers, the climactic battle is brutal; established characters meet their demises quickly and unceremoniously. Read separately, the books are honest and revealing character studies of two differing Chinese perspectives during the Boxer Rebellion. Together, they resonate electrically, partly due to their mirrored plots, but more so for capturing the historical context and dueling psychologies (the group vs. the self, national pride vs. spiritual pride) that underlie this political and cultural conflict. Ages 12–up. Agent: Judith Hansen, Hansen Literary Agency. (Sept.)

Publishers Weekly

A masterful work of historical fiction that happens to be in the form of a graphic novel, and a very accessible view into a complicated moment in Chinese history.” —Dave Eggers

“In Boxers and Saints, Gene Luen Yang once again masterfully draws us into the most difficult issues of self-identity and communal understanding, with characters who struggle to act out of their deepest cultural and spiritual selves.  But when they find that their commitments lead them in terrible, frightening directions—one toward massacres, another toward martyrdom—they must ask questions for which there are no easy answers.  The brilliance of this novel—and I mean, aside from the brilliance in the telling of a major historical episode about which most North Americans know very little and which provides some critical lessons in political relationships—the brilliance lies in the merger of fast action and humor and very real characters and startling graphics with a shattering sense of the brokenness of the world and our terrible need for compassion.  Read this, and come away shaking.” —National Book Award Finalist and Newbery Honor winner Gary Schmidt, author of Okay for Now and The Wednesday Wars

From the Publisher

Gr 9 Up—Acclaimed graphic novelist Yang brings his talents to historical fiction in these paired novels set during China's Boxer Rebellion (1899–1900). In Boxers, life in Little Bao's peaceful rural village is disrupted when "foreign devils"-a priest and his phalanx of soldiers-arrive. The foreigners behave with astonishing arrogance, smashing the village god, appropriating property, and administering vicious beatings for no reason. Little Bao and his older brothers train in kung fu and swordplay in order to defend against them, and when Little Bao learns how to tap into the power of the Chinese gods, he becomes the leader of a peasant army, eventually marching to Beijing. Saints follows a lonely girl from a neighboring village. Unwanted by her family, Four-Girl isn't even given a proper name until she converts to Catholicism and is baptized-by the very same priest who bullies Little Bao's village. Four-Girl, now known as Vibiana, leaves home and finds fulfillment in service to the Church, while Little Bao roams the countryside committing acts of increasing violence as his army grows. Mysticism plays a part in both stories, and Yang's spare, clean drawing style makes it clear that Vibiana's visits from Joan of Arc and Bao's invocation of the powerful Chinese gods are very real to these characters. The juxtaposition of these opposing points of view, both of them sympathetic, makes for powerful, thought-provoking storytelling about a historical period that is not well known in the West.—Paula Willey, Baltimore County Public Library, Towson, MD

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