Book #5 Gene Luen Yang’s Boxers

As you can see I have quite a few books to read.

Now that the holidays are over, I’ll probably only be able to post a review every other day—time to wrap up the semester and attempt to finish a few of my own writing projects.

Finally, something unlike the other four books I’ve read so far. Boxers is set during the Boxer Rebellion in China and has a companion novel Saints. I was lucky enough to get copies of both and talk with the author about his work. As a fan of American Born Chinese, I couldn’t wait to read these books, and I think I like Saints just a little bit more than Boxers. But, first, Boxers is the first historical fiction graphic novel I’ve read. 

Set in the late 1800s, Boxers is Bao’s story, a Chinese boy whose village’s statue of their earth god, Tu Di Gong, is destroyed by a Catholic priest. When Bao’s father tries to seek compensation for the destruction, he is attacked by foreigners on the way and returns to the village broken. Angered by these experiences and guided by the spirits of the gods from the operas he so admires, Bao trains in kung fu and joins the Big Sword Society in order to rid his country of the “foreign devils” and their converts.  

I don’t claim to be a scholar of graphic novels, but color seems to play a large role in Boxers and Saints. Saints, for example, is noticeably less colorful than Boxers; in Boxers color comes through with the different gods, with the blood shed in battles, and with the items associated with religion—the building that serves as the Catholic Church and the statue of Tu Di Gong. (Lark Pien is the colorist). As Bao and his fellow soldiers battle, they are filled with the sprits of gods and those forms fill the battle pages, and now I understand how Yang associates them with superheroes—they float, they fill the pages, and next to the soldiers in their uniforms, Bao’s army represents the passion found in the stories he has grown up with.

I was sort of hoping that there would be author’s notes at the end of each book, as I love reading the “real” stories that inspired the author, but Yang instead provides a short list of further reading and his website provides some further background information as well as some interesting commentary, for example, how Chinese opera and American comics are alike.

The teacher in me hopes these books are used in the classroom. I know many teachers who use graphic novels in their classroom these days, and these two novels offer important insight into an historical period. Furthermore, the genre itself offers additional opportunities for teachers and students to discuss representation.  It would make a perfect addition for a 10^th grade world lit class or an interdisciplinary unit for 8^th graders.