New York Times Review
THE proper way to salute the genius of Shaun Tan would be to draw a picture, or really three pictures. The first image would be of bursting fireworks, for the awe his illustrations inspire. You don't have to look past the cover of "Tales From Outer Suburbia," which shows a figure in one of those old-time deep-sea-diving helmets standing on an otherwise ordinary street, to know what I mean. You almost can't stop yourself from saying, "Wow." Or at least I couldn't. The second image would be a sorcerer's hat, to represent the otherworldly magic that Tan sprinkles liberally into his work. He knows just how to drop the extraordinary into the ordinary, creating his own mystical, serendipitous universe. Finally, there would be a handkerchief, to represent the surprisingly powerful melancholy and longing that both his stories and his pictures evoke. And all these pictures, like Tan's, would combine unerring detail, abundant visual wit and a placid impressionism conveying the feeling of memory. A 35-year-old writer and illustrator from Australia, Tan has received many awards for his work, including, I learned from Wikipedia, one from the L. Ron Hubbard Illustrators of the Future contest. His work is weird, all right, but the best kind of weird - the kind that welcomes you in. "Tales From Outer Suburbia" is a collection of illustrated stories about, among other things, a water buffalo who hangs out in a vacant lot and gives directions to local kids; stick figures who get beaten up by neighborhood bullies; a giant dugong that appears on someone's lawn; and the lonely fate of all the unread poetry that people write - it joins a vast "river of waste that flows out of suburbia" This last story, by the way, is presented as a flotilla of random scraps that "through a strange force of attraction" come together, the word "naturally" meeting the phrase "many poems are" and then "immediately destroyed." For all his talents as an illustrator, Tan also writes extremely well. Each story is an exercise in narrative concision - the characters are vivid and original, the plots blend logic and whimsy, and the endings always pay off, if never quite the way you expect. My favorite, "Our Expedition," is about a pair of brothers who disagree over what lies beyond the edge of a map their father keeps in his car. One boy is convinced that the world simply ends, as the map implies, while the other insists that this would be impossible. They make a bet and head out on a long trek to see for themselves. It is a wonderful extrapolation of a youthful argument, and it resolves with a stunning, surrealistic illustration across two pages. Tan's earlier book "The Arrival" (2007) contained no words at all: It begins with a father leaving his family to seek opportunities in a strange land, which Tan peppers with funky nonhuman creatures, bizarre urban dwellings and food that looks like nothing you've ever seen or considered eating. These flourishes of absurdity give the reader a direct experience of the extreme culture shock experienced by the immigrant, of how deeply unsettling a new world must be. In that sense, "The Arrival" feels much truer than a dutifully realistic account could. Which might explain why, at the end, I actually cried. Not a lot, not like a baby. But more than I expected a wordless picture book filled with sci-fi-like critters could ever make me. Tan's 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. Tan's surreal tales feature a water buffalo, stick figures and rivers of unread poetry. Hugo Lindgren is the editorial director of New York magazine. |
Library Journal Review
Chris Van Allsburg meets The Outer Limits. Fifteen tales illustrate how ordinary suburban existence can take a turn toward the fantastical. Tan, the author of the wordless graphic novel The Arrival (Scholastic, 2007), here combines his artistic gifts with short, first-person stories that send the mind off in magical directions. Whether following the sage advice of a neighborhood water buffalo or falling off the end of the world, the narrators in these stories invite the reader to ask, "What happens next?" Why It Is for Us: Reminiscent of Van Allsburg's The Mysteries of Harris Burdick (1984), this is a fun (if sometimes bittersweet) collection for those of us who long for a little dose of the extraordinary in the midst of everyday life.-Angelina Benedetti, King Cty. Lib. Syst., WA (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted. |
Publishers Weekly Review
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, a 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.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved |
Library Journal Review
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 (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted. |
Booklist Review
*Starred Review* After teaching the graphic format a thing or two about its own potential for elegance with The Arrival (2007), Tan follows up with this array of 15 extraordinary illustrated tales. But here is an achievement in diametric opposition to his silent masterpiece, as Tan combines spare words and weirdly dazzling images in styles ranging from painting to doodles to collage to create a unity that holds complexities of emotion seldom found in even the most mature works. The story of a water buffalo who sits in a vacant lot mysteriously pointing children in the right direction is whimsical but also ominous. The centerpiece, Grandpa's Story, recalling a ceremonial marriage journey and the unnameable perils faced therein, captures a tone of aching melancholy and longing, but also, ultimately, a sense of deep, deep happiness. And the eerie Stick Figures is both a poignant and rather disturbing narrative that plays out in the washed-out daylight of suburban streets where curious, tortured creatures wait at the ends of pathways and behind bus stops. The thoughtful and engaged reader will take from these stories an experience as deep and profound as with anything he or she has ever read.--Karp, Jesse Copyright 2008 Booklist |
Horn Book Review
(Middle School) Tan follows his wordless epic The Arrival with a collection of -- stories? fables? dreams? Take "Eric," a foreign exchange student who likes to sleep in the pantry, asks peculiar questions, and disappears "with little more than a wave and a polite good-bye," leaving behind a magical gift. Or "Our Expedition," in which two brothers, arguing about the cut-off edge of a street map, follow it to see what's there -- or isn't. While many of the selections don't get much beyond their premises, and Tan's low-key expository prose offers few rewards of its own, the real story here is the pictures. Some display the somber polish of the Arrival vignettes, others are full-color, full-page fantasies; each one has more than enough power to seduce the browser into looking closely into its mysteries. From HORN BOOK, (c) Copyright 2010. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted. |
Kirkus Review
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 wisdomwithout 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 poemsand a short storytold 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) Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission. |