Here's another great piece on Gene Luen Yang's acclaimed graphic novel American Born Chinese
, which quickly became one of my favorite books of all time: A.B.C.: Gene Yang's 'American Born Chinese'. The book was nominated for the National Book Award for Young People's Literature in 2006—the very first graphic novel ever to earn this distinction. It's brilliant. American Born Chinese was published a little while back now, but still manages to get quite a bit of attention, with new fans continuing to discover its awesomeness. Which is why I think this campaign, spotted over at Greg Pak's comics blog, is so cool. DonorsChoose.org is a charity that allows you to contribute directly to public school teachers and programs. One teacher on the site has a proposal requesting funding to teach American Born Chinese to public school students in Tonawanda, New York: Ending Discrimination Through Graphic Novels.
Donations would go towards a literature unit focusing on diversity, discrimination and its effects. I think this is a fantastic idea. She's asking for just $700 to purchase 30 copies (a class set). As I write this, she still needs $540. Read the details of her proposal, and donate to her project here. And dude, if you haven't read American Born Chinese
yet, please, get yourself a friggin' copy right now.UPDATE: I'm informed by a couple of folks over at RiceDaddies that the Ending Discrimination Through Graphic Novels proposal is just one of several proposals in the RiceDaddies Empowerment in Diversity Challenge. Peruse the other listed worthy proposals and find out how you can help fund these worthy causes.