“Change is hard. Middle school is harder,” reads the tagline on the cover of Ray Xu’s Alterations (2024). This graphic novel opens in Toronto, Canada, in January 1994, during a snowstorm. Kevin is a 10-year-old boy of Chinese descent whose father has moved out to pursue another relationship.
Kevin shares a room with his 17-year-old sister, Betty, the “smart one,” the violin player, and an aspiring college student. Their mother works at Lee’s Alterations as a tailor. PoPo, their mother’s mother, is coming to visit. She turns out to be loud and to smell like medicinal herbs, but she is also savvy about people and ferocious about protecting her family.
The children in Alterations are all struggling to find their way in the world. They are very socially aware of themselves and their rank in the social hierarchy. They are aware of class and which schoolmates are wealthy, what flavor of Chinese they are (Hong Kong-born, full-blood or half-white, etc.), the state of their families (parents married or divorced), and other factors.
“Kev” has a taste for the “century eggs” (aka “thousand year eggs”), often used in congee, which are an acquired taste. The eggs themselves have egg whites that are greenish-black and somewhat transparent. They are a sight for those who have never seen them before. When he is seen eating such an egg at school, he earns the moniker “Egg Boy.”
His life is full of challenges. He has a crush on Lily, who used to be nice but who is now mean to him. There are tensions in the family with the mother single-handedly running the alterations shop but leaning on her children to run errands in support of her work. PoPo offers wisdom to her overworked under-rested daughter: “Remember, this period will end. It doesn’t speak to how your whole life will look.”
The older generations of the Lee family struggle with the cultural differences they encounter. Kev (or Zhu Zhu) has a foot in each world. When it is all too much, he immerses in the world of comics.
There are striking moments, such as when Kevin notices that neither parent is home for dinner, the father because of the divorce, and the mother because of overwork. He sees his grandmother’s aged hands and wonders what he will be like when he is old. Several themes are interwoven in this work. One is the importance of understanding that pain in the present moment transmutes into strength tomorrow. Food is a constant source of comfort and a way for the family to socialize (and sometimes fight). All the characters have their own burdens.
Kev is one of the only Asian kids in school, but he is not able to write Chinese when his non-Chinese schoolmates ask. His grandmother is taunted as a “FOBBY” (fresh off the boat), and some of the racism echoes that also found in the U.S. In one moment, PoPo shares information about how Kevin and Betty’s mother went through the privations of the Cultural Revolution (1966 – 1976), in her home country.
He knows he is different or “weird” in the eyes of some of his classmates. In a funny episode, he is playing video games with his friend, who critiques his playing and then advises, “Try left, diagonal-down left, down, diagonal-down right, and press any button!”
Alterations evokes well the challenges of growing up different in middle school. There are humorous touches and astute observations throughout. There are observations of the social dynamics that enable Kev to redeem himself through happenstance, coupled with some brave decision-making.
Xu’s evocatively-drawn panels are memorable and move the plot forward. The dialogue is believable and emerges from the characters. As an author-illustrator, Xu has expressive range in his depictions of the characters and mastery over the visual grammar of comics. He works as a story artist in Toronto, and he has worked on many high profile projects.
Shalin Hai-Jew has worked in higher education for many years. She has edited dozens of nonfiction educational books and authored a dozen with a number of publishers.
