“[‘American Born Chinese’] was about a young boy of Chinese descent who moves to America and his struggles to identify with his culture and acclimate to his climate. I thought the book covered an interesting topic that there isn’t really enough about. There is so little about Asian culture in the media, so it is good to see that because a lot of Asian kids out there don’t have anything to identify with.”

Peter Ha, sophomore

“I thought [‘American Born Chinese’] was pretty educational that they did it in a graphic novel to show differing views of society and racism. I learned that not everybody accepts every race just because it’s the law to be inclusive and there is a lot of racism even if you don’t know it and you’re not present. I thought the graphic novel was a fast read and a good way to get the message out.”

Avery Kelley, freshman  “I liked how the main character [of ‘American Born Chinese’] was based off of three people in a way. It’s based off of three characters and they kind of merge into one character in the end.”

Sergei Lefaibre, freshman

“I started by reading ‘The New Jim Crow’ and ‘Invisible Man’ first, and then in the last couple of days before school started, I read ‘Caucasia.’ So, coming from two books that are brilliant and about racism, ‘Caucasia’ was a bit of a step down. I liked the first third of it; it was pretty righteous, but then it went down. ‘The New Jim Crow’ is a brilliant analysis, and anyone who thinks they have an opinion on racism should read it. ‘Invisible Man’ is equally brilliant but it’s much more social, and it’s a novel. They are both great books and both would be better than ‘Caucasia.’”

Matthew Morgan, senior

“I guess ‘Caucasia’ was okay, but for the most part I thought that it was a little bit too sentimental, and half way through I just lost the point of the book. It lost that raw feeling that it had in the beginning and it became too emotional. I guess that’s the point of the book, but to me personally it was kind of boring and hard to read through.”

Vishnu Raghavan, junior

“I thought it was a really interesting book. It really did bring out some themes that I had never thought about regarding race such as letting your skin or your appearance speak for itself. One major flaw was that it was fictional it didn’t seem as serious and realistic. I liked the two books that they chose. The one for the freshmen and sophomores was really good, I’ve read it before, and ‘Caucasia’ was pretty good.”

Joseph Lee, senior