An exchange student who's really an alien, a secret room that becomes the perfect place for a quick escape, a typical tale of grandfatherly exaggeration that is actually even more bizarre than he says... These are the odd details of everyday life that grow and take on an incredible life of their own in tales and illustrations that Shaun Tan's many fans will love.
Mary Quattlebaum
These 15 illustrated stories and vignettes resist easy understanding but invite reflection…Tan's mixed-media art, with its surreal landscapes, rescued turtles and decorated missiles, both illuminates the text and highlights the strange beauty of the ordinary.
The Washington Post
Hugo Lindgren
[Tan's] work is weird, all right, but the best kind of weirdthe kind that welcomes you in…For all his talents as an illustrator, Tan also writes extremely well. Each story is an exercise in narrative concisionthe characters are vivid and original, the plots blend logic and whimsy, and the endings always pay off, if never quite the way you expect…[his] work overflows with human warmth and childlike wonder. But it also makes a perfect adult bedtime story, a little something to shake loose your imagination from the moors of reality right before your own dreams kick in.
The New York Times
Publishers Weekly
The term "suburbia" may conjure visions of vast and generic sameness, but in his hypnotic collection of 15 short stories and meditations, Tan does for the sprawling landscape what he did for the metropolis in The Arrival.Here, the emotional can be manifest physically (in "No Other Country," a down-on-its-luck family finds literal refuge in a magic "inner courtyard" in their attic) and the familiar is twisted unsettlingly (a reindeer appears annually in "The Nameless Holiday" to take away objects "so loved that their loss will be felt like the snapping of a cord to the heart"). Tan's mixed-media art draws readers into the strange settings, à la The Mysteries of Harris Burdick. In "Alert but Not Armed," a double-page spread heightens the ludicrousness of a nation in which every house has a government missile in the yard; they tower over the neighborhood, painted in cheery pastels and used as birdhouses ("If there are families in faraway countries with their own backyard missiles, armed and pointed back at us, we would hope that they too have found a much better use for them," the story ends). Ideas and imagery both beautiful and disturbing will linger. Ages 12-up. (Feb.)Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
VOYA - Rachelle Bilz
Following his wildly successful, highly acclaimed The Arrival (Arthur A. Levine/Scholastic, 2007/VOYA August 2007), Tan now offers readers fifteen short stories brilliantly composed of both words and mixed-media artwork. By turns cute and creepy, chilling and profound, these thought-provoking vignettes challenge readers to use both imagination and experiential reality to find their own meaning in these fascinating stories. Employing collage, paintings, drawings, and other art forms, Tan surrounds the words of his stories with intriguing visuals. Tales like Eric, about an otherworldly exchange student, and Stick Figures, about odd beings in a neighborhood, may be considered modern fairy tales. The Amnesia Machine and Undertow could be seen as cautionary tales about modern society while Alert But Not Alarmed is a delightful satirical riff on missile proliferation. Even the stories that at first seem fanciful, such as The Water Buffalo, also convey dark undertones either via illustration or tone. How very "outer" Tan's suburbia truly is might be reflected in the picture of the Tuesday Afternoon Reading Group, comprising a human female pictured with decidedly alien beings and their books. Wonderfully imaginative and delightfully strange, Tan's suburban mythology is sure to appeal to science fiction and fantasy fans grades seven and up. Reluctant readers might also be attracted to this book because of the interesting blend of pictures and prose. Readable as both entertainment and social commentary, this book should enjoy wide-ranging appeal as could also find a place in the school curriculum. Reviewer: Rachelle Bilz
Children's Literature - Sarah Maury Swan
This is a wonderful collection of short stories about the strangeness, disappointment, and joy of life. It is the kind of book to read with your mind open for new thoughts. In one story, a water buffalo gives advice, and those who follow it are amazed that the buffalo knew what they wanted. In another story, dogs mourn the death of a dog and take revenge on the man who killed him. Two boys hike to the end of the map and sit on the edge of the world. People find the secret inner courtyards of their houses, where they have picnics in the courtyard's summer and cool off in the courtyard's winter. A deep sea diver is reunited with a relative by two brothers, much to their surprise. A grandfather tells his grandchildren about his wedding day, and someone relates the arrival of a monstrous piece of equipment to a neighborhood park. The equipment is somehow linked to the introduction of a new flavor of ice cream. Some of the stories are a page long; some are longer. Some are written almost as collagesvery intriguing stuff. The book's illustrations only add to the intrigue. Teen agers with a flair for the bizarre will enjoy this book. Reviewer: Sarah Maury Swan
School Library Journal
Gr 4 Up For those who loved Tan's surreal and evocative The Arrival (Scholastic, 2007), the Australian author follows up with a brilliant collection of illustrated vignettes. Fifteen short texts, each accompanied by Tan's signature black-and-white and full-color artwork, take the mundane world and transform it into a place of magical wonders. In the opening tale, a water buffalo sits in an abandoned suburban lot, offering silent but wise direction to those youngsters who are patient enough to follow his guidance. In "Eric," the title character (a tiny, leaflike creature) visits a family as a foreign exchange student and fascinates them with his sense of wonder. His parting gift to the family is sure to warm even the coldest heart. Other stories describe the fate of unread poetry, the presence of silent stick figures who roam the suburbs, or an expedition to the edge of a map. In spirit, these stories are something akin to the wit and wisdom of Shel Silverstein. The surrealist art of Rene Magritte also comes to mind, but perhaps Chris Van Allsburg's beloved The Mysteries of Harris Burdick (Houghton, 1984) comes closest as a comparable work. While somewhat hard to place due to the unusual nature of the piece, this book is a small treasure, or, rather, a collection of treasures.-Douglas P. Davey, Halton Hills Public Library, Ontario, Canada
Kirkus Reviews
Nameless, ageless, genderless first-person narrators bring readers into offbeat yet recognizable places in this sparkling, mind-bending collection from the creator of The Arrival (2007). In "Our Expedition," siblings set out to see if anything exists beyond the end of their father's road map. Dysfunctional parents and the child they ignore are brought together when a dugong appears in their front lawn in "Undertow." With these and other short stories, Tan brings magic to places where magic rarely happens in books. These are fairy tales for modern times, in which there is valor, love and wisdom-without dragons and castles. The accompanying illustrations vary widely in style, medium and palette, reflecting both the events and the mood of each story, while hewing to a unifying sense of the surreal. In some stories, Tan has replaced the sparse, atmospheric text entirely with pictures, leaving the reader to absorb the stunning visual impact of his imagined universe. Several poems-and a short story-told via collage are included. Graphic-novel and text enthusiasts alike will be drawn to this breathtaking combination of words and images. (Graphic anthology. 12 & up)
From the Publisher
Praise for The Arrival:
“Shaun Tan’s The Arrival may be the most brilliant book of the year.” — School Library Journal, starred review“Filled with both subtlety and grandeur, the book is a unique work that not only fulfills but also expands the potential of its form.” — Booklist, starred review
“Few will remain unaffected by this timeless stunner.” — Publishers Weekly, starred review
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