Foreign Exchange- Graphic Novel

Dardess, George (1994) Foreign exchange. Rochester, NY: Austin Press, 139 pp.
Graphic Novel
Alvin, a frustrated American teenager from a dysfunctional family, becomes increasingly angry after his sickly mother agrees to take in a German exchange student. Most especially, he is bothered by the fact that the student, Rudi, appears, to everyone besides his parents and the school administrators, to be a dog. The adults, with the exception of the school janitor, see him as a well-behaved human visitor who needs to be treated with courtesy and respect. After being reprimanded for their initial derisive reaction, the students agree to play along with the seemingly delusional adults. Whenever he is shown kindness, Rudi grows in size and, eventually, begins to take on a more human form. As others begin to accept Rudi's growing humanity, Alvin's reaction grows from annoyance to pure rage. During a baseball practice, he pitches the ball hard into Rudi's face, sending him into a coma. Once Alvin comes to visit and express concern for him, Rudi, now fully human, recovers, but Alvin sinks into a deep depression. Eventually, Rudi is told that he was seen as a dog upon his arrival and begins a rapid devolution to his former caninity. He is killed, ironically, by Alvin's mother's car and the other characters graduate high school and try to make sense of what happened.
The central characters in this story are pretty messed-up. Alvin goes from hornery to near homocidal to homebound in the course of the narrative. His mother is ill, out-of-touch, and caught in her delusional beliefs. His father is altogether mute, though more responsive than the rest of the family. Other characters, Alvin's friends Jill and Byron are more compassionate and likeable. The plot, although bizarre, draws the reader in to an intense examination of prejudice and cruelty in the American High school. Other racial and social dynamics are addressed through the character of Ramon, the angry half Cherokee, and the relatively more accepting Black and female students of the school. Jill speaks for the compassionate but uncowed feminist. All of the students undergo a profound transformation of social and emotional consciousness, but Rudi's metamorphosis is central and the most dramatic. I believe this book would help adolescents struggling to fit into a new school or understand any kind of diversity.
The supertitle to this book is "The Catcher in the Rye of the 1990s", and thus it would make an excellent bridge to a classic. I would probably recommend this as an individual or small-group read, unless my school was experiencing a similar student tragedy or difficulty in understanding a guest from another culture. I think most secondary students could handle this book, but would particularly recommend it to high-schoolers.
I found the first half of this book a bit slow, but, once the story picked up momentum, I couldn't put it down. I didn't like the artwork as much as some graphic novels I've read, but I appreciated the visual aspect in depicting Rudi's transformations and sharing the split perceptions of the adults and young people. Overall, I would recommend this book to anyone interested in its themes.