Readings.com.au: Shaun Tan

The Arrival

The Arrival is a 128 page book of illustrations without words, a silent graphic novel. Through a series of connecting images, it tells the story of a migrant leaving his home, crossing an ocean to a strange new city and eventually learning how to live there. The migrant is unable to understand such things as the language, transportation, food and housing of this foreign place and therefore neither should the reader, hence the absence of words.The artwork embraces the texture of old sepia photographs that typically documented social life during the early nineteenth century. The entire work of art simultaneously appears as a strange photo album.

Shaun Tan is an award winning author and illustrator, well-known for The Lost Thing which was a CBCA Honour Book in 2002 and The Red Tree, which was also a CBCA Honour Book in 2002. This illustrative masterpiece will appeal directly to children and adults of all ages, cultures and backgrounds.

Ages: 9+

Tales From Outer Suburbia

CBCA Older Readers Book of the Year 2009

Do you remember the water buffalo at the end of our street?

Or the deep-sea diver we found near the underpass?

Do you know why dogs bark in the middle of the night?

Shaun Tan, creator of The Arrival, The Lost Thing and The Red Tree, reveals the quiet mysteries of everyday life: homemade pets, dangerous weddings, stranded sea mammals, tiny exchange students and secret rooms filled with darkness and delight.

The Rabbits: 10th Anniversary Edition

A rich and haunting allegory of colonization for all ages and cultures, told from the viewpoint of native animals. This stunning picture book examines the consequences of the arrival of a group of rabbits with entirely unfamiliar ways. They bring new food and animals, and they make their own houses to live in, eventually dominating the environment and its other inhabitants. The parallels with our own experience are many: "They chopped down our trees and scared away our friends and stole our children..."

The Rabbits

The Viewer

Written by acclaimed horror writer Gary Crew, The Viewer tells the peculiar story of a boy whose obsession with curious artefacts leads him to discover an strange box at a dump site. It proves to be an ancient chest full of optical devices, one of which captures his interest; an intricately mechanical object which carries disks of images; scenes of destruction, violence and the collapse of civilisations throughout time. The boy is afraid, but also cannot help but look into the machine time and time again as the images shift and change…

The Lost Thing

The Lost Thing is a humorous story about a boy who discovers a bizarre-looking creature while out collecting bottle-tops at a beach. Having guessed that it is lost, he tries to find out who owns it or where it belongs, but the problem is met with indifference by everyone else, who barely notice it’s presence. Each is unhelpful in their own way; strangers, friends, parents are all unwilling to entertain this uninvited interruption to day-to-day life. In spite of his better judgement, the boy feels sorry for this hapless creature, and attempts to find out where it belongs.

The Lost Thing received an Honourable Mention at the Bologna International Book Fair, Italy, was named an Honour Book at the CBCA Awards, won an Aurealis Award and a Spectrum Award for illustration in the United States. Original illustrations from the book were exhibited at the Itabashi Art Museum in Tokyo.

The Lost Thing

Memorial

Memorial is a story about a tree planted beside a war memorial monument, in a small country town by returned servicemen. Years on, the tree has grown to be huge and unruly, dislodging the statue next to it and creating a traffic hazard in what is now a much larger, busier town. A decision is made by a local council to cut the tree down.

Memorial won an Honour Book award in the 2000 CBCA awards, won an APA Design Award for best designed children’s book and was short-listed for the Queensland Premier’s Book Awards.

Rabbits

The arrival of rabbits in Australia, as viewed by native Australian animals, this book examines the consequences of that invasion for the environment and the original inhabitants. Winner of the 1999 CBC Picture Book of the Year.

The Red Tree

The Red Tree is a book about feelings - feelings that can not always be simply expressed in words. It is a series of imaginary landscapes conjured up by the wizardry of Shaun Tan's masterful and miraculous art.

As a kind of fable, The Red Tree seeks to remind us that just as bad feelings are inevitable, they are always tempered by hope.

The Lost Thing

The Red Tree

As a kind of fable, The Red Tree seeks to remind us that just as bad feelings are inevitable, they are always tempered by hope.