Boxers and Saints

Boxers, 325 pages
Saints, 170 pages, both by Gene Luen Yang
2014 Top Ten Great Graphic Novels for Teens

Boxers and Saints is a story about the Boxer Rebellion in China, but told from both sides. In Boxers, we meet Little Bao, who loves the spring festivals, if only for the operas that are always performed. One day, a foreign devil (a.k.a, a priest) comes to his village and smashes their statue of the god Tu Di Gong. Little Bao's father and the village constable decide to go to the magistrate with their concerns. His father and the constable never make it to the magistrate. Instead, they encounter more foreign devils, soldiers this time, who beat Little Bao's father so badly, he's never the same. So when Red Lantern comes to their village and offers to teach the men kung fu, Little Bao is ready to learn. He soon comes under the tutelage of Master Big Belly, who teaches him the Ritual that allows the gods to possess the body of whoever performs it, giving them their power and strength. Bao in particular is possessed by the spirit of Ch'in Shih-huang, the first emperor of China, who united the land under one name and built the Great Wall. Soon, Bao and his followers, named the Society of the Righteous and Harmonious Fist, march towards Peking to take China back from the foreign devils, bringing death to the foreigners and Chinese who have converted to Christianity along the way.

In Saints, we meet Four-girl, named as such because her grandfather refused to give her a proper name, since four in Chinese sounds similar to the word "death" and she was the only child of her mother's to survive for longer than a year. After she accidentally takes the head off Tu Di Gong, her grandfather calls her a devil. Determined to let everyone around her know exactly what she is, she begins contorting her face in what she considers a devilish look. Her mother takes her to an acupuncturist. When she figures out that he has converted to Catholicism and that many consider them to be devils, she decides to convert and become the best devil of them all. She begins seeing Joan of Arc, who encourages her and leads her to teaching orphans in a settlement when Bao and the Society of the Righteous and Harmonius Fist come across them.

I'll admit that I knew very little about the Boxer Rebellion before reading this story. And as I skimmed some Wikipedia articles on the war, I realized that Gene Luen Yang had managed to include so many important aspects of the conflict into the story without making the character development or the overarching story suffer. Despite being on opposite sides of this war, the two main characters are ultimately looking for something to give meaning to their lives and actions. Bao, in his conversations with Ch'in Shih-huang, struggles with doing what is right for China and being a good person. And Four-girl, who is renamed Vibiana upon her baptism, is constantly searching for an identity, especially one that is better than being a devil. The art is lovely, with lots of neutral colors to make the bright colors of the gods more striking and the blood of combat more apparent. This is a bloody war, and the art reflects that, making these books a better fit for older teens. It's a great choice if you're into historical fiction and are ready to try something in a different format, or just have an interest in Chinese history.

(Read as part of YALSA's Hub Reading Challenge)