Uprooted: A Memoir About What Happens When Your Family Moves Back

In this earnest 1993-set graphic novel memoir, Chan (Hard-Boiled Eggs for Breakfast) chronicles her experience replanting her roots when her family moves from Toronto to Hong Kong. After her father gets a new job, Chinese Canadian 13-year-old Ruth Chan must leave behind everything she loves in Toronto—including friends, ketchup-flavored chips, and her brother, who’s attending boarding school—for Hong Kong. Though her immigrant parents are excited for the move, Hong Kong is all too unfamiliar to Chan; the buildings are taller, school is more difficult, and her Cantonese is not yet good enough to help her connect with her peers. The creator details these mounting difficulties in nuanced character interactions: her Hong Kong family chastises her American behaviors, as when she serves herself first during a family dinner (“We need to invite the elders to eat before anyone starts”). Even as she navigates intense loneliness surrounding her parents’ constant comings-and-goings, expressive cartooning rendered in pastel tones across simply plotted panels depicts nightly talks with her father that help encourage tween Chan to persevere. A beginning address discusses the use of Chinese characters in dialogue, and an author’s note concludes. Ages 8–12. Agent: Rebecca Sherman, Writers House. (Sept.)