by Gene Luen Yang and Leuyen Pham

Happy Valentine’s Day! One of my favorite authors has a new book out. Happy Year of the Dragon!

I started this book on the train to visit my mom on Lunar New Year and I finished it a day later after getting back home.

It’s a lovely, wonderfully romantic story centered around family and friendship, lion dancing, and the creepy ghost of St. Valentine. It’s also about a young woman who learns the truth behind the lies she’s been told about her family.

And the art is really amazing.

I was so engrossed in the story that it took me a while into the book to really notice the chapter break art.

(I once had a mom yell out in my Chinese New Year storytime that she didn’t like the book I read. It was The Great Race by Christopher Corr. It was one of those intensely awkward moments that I learned a great deal from. I learned that Corr’s book has a Western perspective in how it portrays the relationship between certain animals.)

I highly recommend this book! It’s similar to many of Gene Luen Yang’s previous books in that the story takes a lot of turns and you end up learning a lot along the way (in this story, it’s about lion dancing).

(I’m actually in the middle of re-reading American Born Chinese. I finished watching Season One of the show a few months ago. It’s awesome and it made me want to re-read the original).