Prologue: Summary, Analysis, and Key Moments

⚠️ Spoiler Warning: This guide contains detailed spoilers for the entire novel. Proceed only if you've finished reading or are comfortable knowing the plot.

Summary

When Joan is six years old, she announces she plans to become Superman when she grows up and asks her father for a costume. Dad, who dislikes spending money, improvises: he paints an S on a blue T-shirt and gives her a red napkin to use as a cape. Joan wears the costume to bed every night.

That summer, Joan stays with her grandmother in London. Gran is making up Joan's bed when she delivers a startling pronouncement: Joan is not a hero, she's a monster. Gran says the word with the same warmth someone might use to describe being an elf. Joan protests that monsters are cartoon creatures—giant spiders or robots—but Gran insists that pretend monsters are different from real ones. Real monsters, she says, look like her and Joan.

Joan reflects on her appearance. She takes after her father's side of the family, the Changs. Dad emigrated from Malaysia to England at eighteen, and Joan shares his round, freckled cheeks, narrow eyes, and smooth black hair. Gran, by contrast, resembles photos of Joan's late mother: curly hair, sharp green eyes, and what Gran calls the Hunt family look. Joan sometimes catches that same suspicious expression in her own mirror.

Joan remains skeptical. Monsters are the bad guys in cartoons—they lurk under beds, laugh too long, and eat people. She recalls that her teacher Mrs. Ellery once told her that Chinese people ate cats, a comment that made Joan feel like a bad guy, though she resisted the feeling. Gran smiles at Joan's resistance and says she reminds her of Joan's mother. Mum died when Joan was a baby, and Gran rarely speaks of her. Joan ventures that Dad said Mum was clever. Gran agrees, adding that Mum was also stubborn and refused to believe things without proof.

Gran then reaches into the air as if plucking an apple from a tree. Joan's neck hairs rise. Gran opens her hand to reveal a gold coin bearing a winged lion on one side and a crown on the other. Joan assumes it's sleight of hand—her cousin Ruth once showed her how to make a button appear and disappear. But Gran drops the coin into Joan's hand and asks her to make it vanish the monster way, positioning the coin in Joan's palm and closing her fingers over it.

Joan thinks about how Gran has always been kind—sitting up with her during nightmares, wrapping an injured bird in her scarf and nursing it back to health. A person like that couldn't be a monster. Yet Joan concentrates on the weight of the coin until she can no longer feel it, and when she opens her fingers, her palm is empty.

Gran smiles warmly and explains that a rule accompanies the trick. Joan thinks of the rules at home with Dad: don't steal, help people, don't lie, listen to teachers. But the Hunts follow a different code. Stealing and lying are acceptable when directed at strangers; paying debts and being loyal to family are what matter. Gran tells Joan that the Hunts hide in plain sight—no one can know what they are. She lowers her voice and delivers the central instruction: Joan must never tell anyone about monsters.

Key Events

Joan, age six, declares she will be Superman and receives a homemade costume from Dad.
During a summer stay in London, Gran tells Joan she is a monster, not a hero.
Joan rejects the idea, insisting monsters are cartoon creatures.
Gran produces a gold coin from thin air and challenges Joan to make it disappear the monster way.
Joan succeeds, demonstrating her innate magical ability.
Gran explains the Hunt family's rule of secrecy: monsters hide in plain sight and must never be revealed.

Character Development

Joan begins the chapter as an ordinary child with a heroic fantasy. Her Superman costume represents a conventional moral framework—heroes are good, monsters are bad. Gran's revelation forces her to confront a contradiction: the grandmother who comforts her through nightmares and rescues injured birds is also a monster. Joan's successful coin trick shows she possesses the same nature, whether she wants it or not. Her resistance to Mrs. Ellery's racist comment foreshadows her later struggle with how others define her.

Gran emerges as a complex figure. She is warm and nurturing, yet she delivers the family's secret with gravity. Her comparison of Joan to her late mother links Joan's skepticism to a family trait—Mum also demanded proof. Gran's moral code reframes the chapter's ethical landscape: the Hunts' rules are not about good versus evil but about loyalty and concealment.

Themes, Symbols, or Motifs

Appearance vs. Reality. Gran's insistence that real monsters look like ordinary people undercuts Joan's cartoon-based understanding. The coin trick literalizes this theme: something solid and visible can be made to vanish, just as the Hunts' true nature is hidden beneath human faces.

Identity Conflict. Joan's mixed heritage—the Chang features she shares with Dad and the Hunt look she shares with Mum—mirrors her internal conflict. She is both the girl who wanted to be Superman and the monster Gran says she is.

Family Legacy. The chapter establishes that Joan's power and her obligation to conceal it come from her mother's line. Mum's cleverness and stubbornness are presented as inherited traits, and Joan's successful trick suggests she has inherited the ability as well.

The Rule of Secrecy. Gran's final instruction—never tell anyone about monsters—is the chapter's most consequential motif. It creates the central tension of the story: Joan must navigate a world where her true identity is a dangerous secret.

The Coin. The gold coin with the winged lion and crown is the first magical object in the story. It serves as a test of Joan's ability and as a symbol of the hidden world she is about to enter.

Why This Chapter Matters

The Prologue establishes the premise that drives the entire novel. It introduces the concept of monsters as a hidden population living among humans, the moral code that governs them, and the rule of secrecy that will shape Joan's choices. It also plants the seeds of Joan's identity conflict—she is part Chang, part Hunt, and must reconcile her heroic aspirations with her monstrous inheritance. The chapter's final instruction, Gran's command never to tell anyone about monsters, sets up the central dramatic question: what happens when that secret is threatened?

Study Questions

1. Why does Joan initially reject Gran's claim that she is a monster, and what evidence does she use to argue against it?

Joan's understanding of monsters comes entirely from cartoons: giant spiders, robots, creatures that lurk under beds and eat people. She also measures Gran against her own experience—Gran has sat with her during nightmares and cared for an injured bird. Joan cannot reconcile the grandmother she knows with the cartoon definition of a monster, so she assumes Gran must be joking.

2. How does the chapter contrast the rules Joan learned at home with the Hunts' moral code?

At home with Dad, the rules are conventional: stealing is wrong, helping people is right, lying is wrong, listening to teachers is right. The Hunts' code is different—stealing and lying are acceptable when directed at strangers, but paying debts and being loyal to family are paramount. This contrast establishes that the monster world operates by its own ethics, which will complicate Joan's moral judgments throughout the story.

3. What does the coin trick reveal about Joan, and why does Gran choose this moment to test her?

The coin trick reveals that Joan has inherited the Hunt family's magical ability—she can make objects vanish through concentration, not sleight of hand. Gran chooses this moment because Joan has just demonstrated the same skeptical, proof-demanding nature as her mother. By testing Joan, Gran confirms that the ability has passed to the next generation and that Joan must now learn the rules that come with it.