Read This: Prime Baby

I became a fan of Gene Luen Yang after reading his National Book Award-nominated graphic novel, American Born Chinese, back in 2006, so I was thrilled to see his latest, Prime Baby, turn up in my mailbox last week. Actually, “latest” is a bit misleading—this serial strip originally ran in The New York Times Magazine in 2008 and 2009, although I understand it’s been modified somewhat in the collecting. In any event, it has everything I love about Yang’s storytelling: the depiction of a child’s perspective on the world without condescension or excess sentimentality, a clarity and economy of line that can still bear complex emotional characters, and deadpan delivery of the absurd.

I actually had not followed this strip in the Times, as I’m not a particularly close follower of the magazine, so my experience of the story was fresh—and I’ll confess, what I thought at first was going to be a goofy but realistic take on sibling resentment took a genuinely wacky turn about 1/3 of the way through, and stays wacky but still manages to stay grounded emotionally. And it’s pretty much suitable for any reader from 8 to 80—if you buy it for a child you know, don’t be embarrassed to give it a reading before you hand it over!

8 April 2010 | read this |