Module 13: Tales from Outer Suburbia

Book Cover Image

Summary

Tales in Outer Suburbia is just that. It is one book with many short imaginative tales. The beginning is a tale of a water buffalo in the middle of an empty lot, he doesn't talk. He only points passers by in the correct direction if they ask. Another tale is of a foreign exchange student (who is not human). He comes and is inquisitive about the small things in the country. Each tale contains an element that is out of the ordinary but riveting. 

APA Reference

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

My Impressions

Shaun Tan definitely has a different approach, or better yet an imaginative mind. His books are always original. It always leaves the mind to wonder, did something like this really happen somewhere? You really have to follow along every page to think deep about what the story is about. I generally enjoy Shaun Tan's illustrations above his writing.

Professional 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.
— Jesse Karp

Karp, J. (2008). Booklist.

Library Uses

Students can write a tale from their neighborhood and add an out of this world fictional character.