Saturday Morning Cartoons- Alterations

Xu, Ray. Alterations   

January 30, 2024 by Union Square Kids

E ARC provided by Edelweiss Plus

It's 1994, and Kevin Lee  lives with his mother and older sister in Toronto, Canada. His parents have recently divorced, and his father isn't around. He's not even paying alimony, which means that his mother is working long hours at her alterations shop, and asking Kevin and his sister Betty to help out. Kevin would rather read comic books than sew on buttons, but usually does what his mother asks. His older sister is very nice to him, occasionally giving him a comic book that she has bought, and working a lot harder at the shop than he does. His grandmother (Popo) comes to live with the family for a while, and cooks a lot of good traditional Chinese food, even though Kevin would rather have spaghetti some days. After his grandmother sends a century egg with him to school, it causes an overblown smell at his school, and after he is called to the principal's office (where he is "not in trouble"), kids start calling him "Egg Boy". He tries a variety of ways to deflect this attention, but it weighs heavily on him. After he accidentally throws a basketball at a substitute teacher, his mother is called from work again to talk to the principal. This causes a lot of stress in his family; his mother can't lose income, Betty (who is seven years older) feels like Kevin has it easy, and Popo hates to hear the fighting. Popo tells Kevin that when his mother was growing up, the cultural revolution in China was going on, and in order to try to make her life better, his mother and uncle tried to swim to Hong Kong. The uncle made it, but the mother did not, and spent time in jail. Kevin tries to be more understanding of his familiy, but finds it hard. When his class go to an amusement park, there is even more drama, and he sneaks off into a ride about his favorite comic that isn't open quite yet. He finds an invisibility suit, and travels all over the park wearing it and spying on his classmates. Eventually, he gets caught on a roller coaster that is being repaired, and when the test run stops, he has to be rescued. This changes his reputation with his classmates, and his family eventually learns to deal with their differences without fighting. This is a memoir about the artist's life as a tween. 

Strengths: This was an interesting look at middle school in the 1990s, when it was more acceptable to make fun of one's classmates for... apparently any reason whatsoever. Middle school students always think that everyone is looking at them, when in fact everyone is too busy thinking that they are being watched to care much about other people. The family dynamics were interesting as well, especially since Kevin and Betty seemed to get along decently well, right up until they argued constantly. The class trip to the amusement park, and Kevin getting paired with the principal when his partner didn't come, will seem exotic to students today, most of whom don't even get field trips to a local library two blocks away. 
Weaknesses: This seemed like it was a realistic memoir until the invisibility suit. I worried about Kevin breaking into the not-yet-opened exhibit to begin with, and was a little confused about what the purpose of suddenly going into fantasy was. Will kids care? No. 
What I really think: This is a good choice for readers who can't get enough of graphic memoirs like Ogle's Four Eyes, Krosoczka's Sunshine , Russo's Why is Everybody Yelling, or Page's Button Pusher.  I am starting to wonder if Dan Santat is the only illustrator who had a halfway happy time in middle school, or at least wrote about a happy time in his A First Time for Everything.