Kevin Lee just wants space and time to draw comics. At home, if he’s not bickering with his sister, Betty, over their shared room, he needs to help their single mom at her alteration shop underneath their apartment. Plus, his grandmother has been staying with them for the last six months, and though Kevin loves Popo, he also finds her incredibly embarrassing.
School isn’t much better, as Kevin stands out as one of the only three Asian Canadian students. Things go from bad to worse when Popo sends Kevin to school with a century egg for lunch, and eating it leads his peers to give him a new nickname: “Egg Boy.” Kevin just has to survive until Friday when his class goes to Thrill Planet, the amusement park field trip they’ve been looking forward to all year, then everything will be better . . . right?
Alterations is Ray Xu’s debut graphic novel, but he is well-versed in drawing funny stories, with experience as a storyboard artist for films including The Mitchells vs. the Machines and Captain Underpants. Kevin Lee’s story is hilarious and heartfelt, with semi-autobiographical elements from Xu’s childhood in Toronto in the ‘90s. Alterations is like the century egg Kevin eats: On the outside, it looks like a story about middle school drama, but once you bite in, you realize the family dynamics are the umami flavor you can’t ignore.
The graphic elements are lively and entertaining. An embedded narrative of a fanfiction comic that Kevin is creating for a series called Star Odysseys adds a layer that will keep readers engaged, even if it does occasionally result in abrupt transitions. Background colors pop with cartoon-like onomatopoeias. The colors of the narration boxes helpfully change throughout: yellow for Kevin’s story, blue for the fanfiction comics, and pink for Popo’s folktales.
Semi-autobiographical graphic novels for middle grade readers are booming, and rightfully so. This one is a tad more fantastical than Dan Santat’s A First Time for Everything, and a bit more realistic than Yehudi Mercado’s Chunky, and it will certainly appeal to fans of both.
