What happens when a familiar American legend is told by someone who has never been fully included in that story?
That is the quiet, powerful question at the heart of The Legend of Auntie Po, a graphic novel written and illustrated by Shing Yin Khor.
Set in a Sierra Nevada logging camp in the late 1800s, the story follows Mei, a young Chinese American girl who cooks for the lumberjacks alongside her father. By day, she navigates the realities of exclusion and invisibility. By night, she tells stories. Her stories center on “Auntie Po,” a reimagined version of Paul Bunyan, recast as a Chinese matriarch with immense strength, wisdom, and presence.
Because this story is told as a graphic novel, the visual world matters as much as the written one. The interplay between image and text deepens the emotional landscape, allowing what is spoken, imagined, and felt to unfold in layered ways.
In her Story Preservation recording, Shing Yin offers a window into how this book came to life, reflecting on the process behind creating a graphic novel and the interplay between writing and illustration. Students hear not just the finished story, but the thinking and creative choices that shaped it.
It is in both the story and the process that something essential happens.
Finalist, 2021 National Book Award for Young People's Literature
Winner, 2022 Eisner Award for Best Publication for Teens
Finalist, 2022 California Book Award
2022 ALSC Notable Children's Book
2021 School Library Journal Best Books of the Year
2021 Horn Book Fanfare Selection
