Boxers & Saints Boxed Set
Author(s): Gene Luen Yang
The Boxers & Saints Boxed Set from Gene Luen Yang, one of the greatest comics storytellers alive, brings all his formidable talents to bear in this astonishing work.
In two volumes, Boxers & Saints tells two parallel stories. The first is of Little Bao, a Chinese peasant boy whose village is abused and plundered by Westerners claiming the role of missionaries. Little Bao, inspired by visions of the Chinese gods, joins a violent uprising against the Western interlopers. Against all odds, their grass-roots rebellion is successful.
But in the second volume, Yang lays out the opposite side of the conflict. A girl whose village has no place for her is taken in by Christian missionaries and finds, for the first time, a home with them. As the Boxer Rebellion gains momentum, Vibiana must decide whether to abandon her Christian friends or to commit herself fully to Christianity.
Boxers & Saints is one of the most ambitious graphic novels First Second has ever published. It offers a penetrating insight into not only one of the most controversial episodes of modern Chinese history, but into the very core of our human nature. Gene Luen Yang is rightly called a master of the comics form, and this book will cement that reputation.
This boxed set includes the trade paperback Boxers as well as the trade paperback Saints, packaged together in one slipcase.
A New York Times bestseller
Winner of the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Young Adult Literature
A New York Times Book Review Notable Children's Book of 2013
Review(s):
“A masterful work of historical fiction that happens to be in the form of a graphic novel, and a very accessible view into a complicated moment in Chinese history.” —Dave Eggers
“In Boxers and Saints, Gene Luen Yang once again masterfully draws us into the most difficult issues of self-identity and communal understanding, with characters who struggle to act out of their deepest cultural and spiritual selves. But when they find that their commitments lead them in terrible, frightening directions--one toward massacres, another toward martyrdom--they must ask questions for which there are no easy answers. The brilliance of this novel--and I mean, aside from the brilliance in the telling of a major historical episode about which most North Americans know very little and which provides some critical lessons in political relationships--the brilliance lies in the merger of fast action and humor and very real characters and startling graphics with a shattering sense of the brokenness of the world and our terrible need for compassion. Read this, and come away shaking.” —National Book Award Finalist and Newbery Honor winner Gary Schmidt, author of Okay for Now and The Wednesday Wars
Winner L.A. Times Book Prize - Winner (2013), Short-listed L.A. Times Book Prize - Finalist (2013), Long-listed National Book Awards - Longlist (2013), Long-listed Library Journal Best Books of the Year (2013), Short-listed National Book Awards - Finalist (2013), Long-listed Bank Street Best Children's Book of the Year (2014), Winner Capitol Choices Noteworthy Titles for Children and Teens (2014), Winner CCBC Choice (Univ. of WI) (2014), Long-listed Wall Street Journal Best Books of the Year (2013), Winner NPR Best Book of the Year (2013), Long-listed Apple iBooks Best of the Year (2013), Long-listed NYTBR Notable Children's BOTY (2013), Long-listed Publishers Weekly Best Books of the Year (2013), Long-listed California Book Awards Master List (2014), Long-listed The Observer (UK) Books of the Year (2013), Long-listed Boston Globe-Horn Bk Award, Honor Bk (2014), Long-listed Kirkus Best Teen Books of the Year (2013)
ISBN: 9781596439245