Is it in the water? Does it have something to do with Aboriginal songlines? I wish I knew. Suffice it to say, the YA lit coming out of Australia is so magical it simply amazes me. Think Zusak, Hartnett, Lanaghan and Tan. They are always worth reading. Which brings me to Tales from Outer Suburbia by Shaun Tan who also brought us The Arrival. Tales gathers illustrated short stories long on wonder and mystery. Remember the iconic mean old lady who confiscates children's toys gone astray? Doesn't every kid have such a tale? (The mean lady of my school days collected the kickballs that sailed over the schoolyard fence when we played at lunchtime.) Well Tan's diver from the book's cover just shows up one day in a bland suburb, and two children, as a prank, lead him to the mean lady's house 1) because he seems to be speaking Japanese and she is of Japanese descent, and 2) because he shows them a sliced up toy horse and the woman habitually cuts apart the toys that show up in her yard. However, something mysterious occurs here, just as it does in almost every other allegorical story in Tan's book. This is a read about wonder - how it exists in the most "outer" places, and how we need to be on guard against blandness and cliche. Who to give this to? That's the tricky part. Because some of the stories are told in pictures, it can go younger than YA, but older kids who like quirky books or the Twilight Zone might be more of an audience.
Saturday, May 23, 2009
Those Wonderful Australians - Tales From Outer Suburbia
Is it in the water? Does it have something to do with Aboriginal songlines? I wish I knew. Suffice it to say, the YA lit coming out of Australia is so magical it simply amazes me. Think Zusak, Hartnett, Lanaghan and Tan. They are always worth reading. Which brings me to Tales from Outer Suburbia by Shaun Tan who also brought us The Arrival. Tales gathers illustrated short stories long on wonder and mystery. Remember the iconic mean old lady who confiscates children's toys gone astray? Doesn't every kid have such a tale? (The mean lady of my school days collected the kickballs that sailed over the schoolyard fence when we played at lunchtime.) Well Tan's diver from the book's cover just shows up one day in a bland suburb, and two children, as a prank, lead him to the mean lady's house 1) because he seems to be speaking Japanese and she is of Japanese descent, and 2) because he shows them a sliced up toy horse and the woman habitually cuts apart the toys that show up in her yard. However, something mysterious occurs here, just as it does in almost every other allegorical story in Tan's book. This is a read about wonder - how it exists in the most "outer" places, and how we need to be on guard against blandness and cliche. Who to give this to? That's the tricky part. Because some of the stories are told in pictures, it can go younger than YA, but older kids who like quirky books or the Twilight Zone might be more of an audience.
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