Response to "Kampung Boy"

After reading “Kampung Boy”, the first thing that I thought about was how close it was to stories of growing up in the US.  While it was in Malaysia and some of the customs were different, some of the same problems exist for growing kids.  Because it resembles childhood for Americans, I think that this comic book is a great way to get students involved in learning about other cultures.  This book really allows students to see strong similarities and differences of the Malaysian culture.  Since there are strong similarities, I imagine that this book is a great way to get students to learn about other cultures.  Out right learning about something totally different and foreign can be daunting, but if told in a way that reminds us of our experiences growing up, it can make it an easy sell.  Being both a graphic novel and a entertaining story about growing up, I think that this book could be a great way to introduce students to this culture while having them be interested in doing it at the same time.  Humor is always a great tool to get kids more interested in any topic and this book certainly provides humor right from the start.

At first the art seemed kind of crude, but it grew on me as I kept reading.  I thought he did some interesting things with the art in writing this story.  He always made himself and sometimes other kids very small in proportion to adults.  I think that this was done for a couple of reasons.  The kids in the book all seem to respect adults and don’t back talk or disrespect them.  This could make him feel more childlike, therefore why he drew himself so small.  His art also depicted him naked a lot, running around, and getting into mischief.   That portion definitely made the book a bit funnier while emphasizing how kids are the same no matter what culture they are from.  All kids are mischievous when they are young and always looking to learn and discover more about their surroundings, even if they aren’t supposed to.  I think that students will be able to relate to that as everyone goes through these stages of curiosity while growing up. 

My favorite part of the book involved his friends who he joined for fishing and swimming.  While it seemed that he did it for fun and to hang out with friends, we see that eventually he realized that he had to make a choice between it or his studies.  Like hindsight, it was written in such a way that it did not seem like a bad at the time.  When we do things as kids, we may not realize at the time how they will affect us later on.  He had to make a choice between fishing and his studies, a choice that every kid has to make at some point in order to move their life along.  While hanging out and fishing with his friends wasn’t necessarily bad, it wasn’t the route in life that he wanted to take.  I think that this is what the book is really about.  The moment he chose to make sure that he was educated was the point at which this book became a coming of age story, which makes it a great way to introduce kids to other cultures by showing that kids in them grow up the same way we do.