The Fire Horse Girl

   Kay Honeyman's debut novel, The Fire Horse Girl, is a different kind of immigrant story. Instead of focusing on how immigrants try to assimilate to American culture, we are offered a different take of the immigrant journey where dreams and expectations are easily traded and sold in seedy places. This review is based on the advanced reader's copy I've received from the publisher via Netgalley. Thank you!

Description (from the Publisher): Jade Moon is a Fire Horse -- the worst sign in the Chinese zodiac for girls, said to make them stubborn, willful, and far too imaginative. But while her family despairs of marrying her off, she has a passionate heart and powerful dreams, and wants only to find a way to make them come true.
  Then a young man named Sterling Promise comes to their village to offer Jade Moon and her father a chance to go to America. While Sterling Promise's smooth manners couldn't be more different from her own impulsive nature, Jade Moon falls in love with him on the long voyage. But America in 1923 doesn't want to admit many Chinese, and when they are detained at Angel Island, the "Ellis Island of the West," she discovers a betrayal that destroys all her dreams. To get into America, much less survive there, Jade Moon will have to use all her stubbornness and will to break a new path . . . one as brave and dangerous as only a Fire Horse girl can imagine.

Review: Jade Moon was born in the year of the Fire Horse, a cursed year for girls. Her horoscopes dictates that she will be too bold, too brash, too stubborn, and she will bring nothing but sorrow and bad luck to her family. Jade Moon unsuccessfully tries to show her family and friends that she is not cursed, but things always go wrong. When a stranger named Sterling Promise shows up at her home in China carrying papers to America with her dead uncle's picture, a plan is hatched for Jade Moon, her father, and Sterling Promise to journey to a new country. Jade Moon is fully convinced that when she goes to America, her cursed label will be forgotten and that she, for the first time, will decide on how to live her life.
  The voyage to America is nothing like what Jade Moon imagined. It is perilous as she is being forced to spend desperate months on Angel Island waiting to be approved to enter California. She is completely taken aback on how poorly Chinese immigrants are treated. As she gathers clues, Jade Moon discovers that her father and Sterling Promise are using her for their own ends, she sets out on her own.
  I got involved with the story of Jade Moon right away. I really liked her character, but after a while I thought she became too much of a caricature. There was really no balance in her personality. She was just too stubborn, impulsive, and hot tempered, but I understood her desire to branch out on her own and make her own destiny. Sterling Promise, however, didn't really make that much of an impression on me. I never really trusted him as he keenly manipulated others to get his own way. There is a lot of potential for his character to become more. There is also hint of a romance along the lines of a love/hate one between him and Jade Moon, but it didn't really develop as much as I would have liked.
  The pace of the book is somewhat uneven. The first half of the book discusses Jade Moon's life in China and the build-up of the possible journey to America. The action stalls as we are given details on the life on Angel Island, but soon picks up when Jade Moon's path diverges from those of her father and Sterling Promises. The parts where she is forced to dress up like a boy and where no one notices for quite some time as well as get involved with the gangsters in San Francisco's Chinatown requires readers to suspend their disbelief. I wish we got to see more of Jade Moon become independent, but I did like how she grew and realized that who really wants to become is inside herself and not from what society expects from her.
  There are a lot of historical details including lots of facts of prejudice and injustice inflicted upon the immigrants on Angel Island that I was unfamiliar with before reading this story. The Fire Horse Girl is a different and refreshing take on the usual immigrant story.

Rating: 3.5 stars

Words of Caution: There is some language and mention of brothels, prostitution, and gambling. Recommended for strong Grade 7 readers and up.

If you like this book try: Flowers in the Sky by Lynn Joseph, Thief Girl by Ingrid Lee, Learning to Fly by Paul Yee

The Arrival

  Literacy has always been defined by scholars as having the ability to read and write. Now studies suggest that our definition of literacy is too narrow and that we should also include visual literacy, which allow us to use pictures like words to draw meaning. The critically acclaimed graphic novel, The Arrival by Shaun Tan, is a wordless graphic novel that challenges our way of thinking and reading.

Description: In this wordless graphic novel, a man leaves his homeland and sets off for a new country, where he must build a new life for himself and his family.

Review: Tan expertly captures the displacement, fear, and awe with which immigrants respond to their new surroundings in this wordless graphic novel. The story is very simple, but the execution of it is very complex and multi-layered. The Arrival depicts the journey of one man, threatened by dark shapes that cast shadows on his family's life, to a new country. His native land is shown in ominous dark colors suggesting a cold and confining place. Some reviewers have suggested that the native land has a totalitarian government by focusing on some symbols, but in my opinion, I think that might be reading a little too in to the graphic novel.
  The unnamed man goes through the several motions like any immigrant who is preparing him/herself to go to another land. The only writing in The Arrival is an invented alphabet, which creates the sensation immigrants must feel when they encounter a strange new language and way of life. A wide variety of ethnicities is represented in Tan's hyper-realistic style, and the sense of warmth and caring for others, regardless of race, age, or background, is present on nearly every page.
  When I first read The Arrival I was taken aback on the strange illustrations, but once I started reading this graphic novel slowly to full embrace its narrative, everything started to click and I grew mesmerized by the  strange new world that Tan creates. The Arrival is a very quick read, but reading it quickly is a big disservice to the reader and to the graphic novel. Readers who take their time looking at the pictures will grasp the sense of strangeness and find themselves participating in the man's experiences. They will linger over the details in the beautiful sepia pictures and will likely read the book again as soon as they turn the last page.

Rating: 4 stars

Words of Caution: None. Though the reading level for this graphic novel can be as low as Grade 4, I would recommended this graphic novel for mature Grades 7 readers and up due to the complex understanding of the visual symbolism.

If you like this book try:  The Wall by Peter Sis, American Born Chinese by Gene Luen Yang