Tales from Outer Suburbia

Tan, S. (2008). Tales from outer suburbia. New York: Arthur A. Levine Books.

Author Website: Tan, S. (n.d.) Shaun Tan. Retrieved from http://www.shauntan.net/

Author Info: Shaun Tan grew up in the suburbs of Perth, Western Australia and was known in school for being good at drawing and for being short. He is a freelance artist and writer. Shaun got started in illustrating with science fiction and horror stories in magazines but he is best known for "illustrated books that deal with social, political and historical subjects through surreal, dream-like imagery." Tales from Outer Suburbia is a collection of fifteen short illustrated stories in which "the real subject of each story is how ordinary people react to these incidents, and how their significance is discovered, ignored or simply misunderstood."

Review One: Davey, D.P. (2009, March 1) [Review of the book Tales from outer suburbia]. School Library Journal.

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.

Review Two:

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.

Discussion Questions:

1. Create two questions that the foreign exchange student, Eric, may have asked his host family.

2. Name one thing that may have appeared on Grandpa and Grandma's wedding scavenger hunt list.

Quote:

pg. 69 "It's as if they take all our questions and offer them straight back: Who are you? Why are you here? What do you want?"