Tales from Outer Suburbia

I read this when I was fairly young, and I am immensely grateful I did. This book is transformative and beautiful and creepy and sad and joyful. It sticks with you long after you've finished, and you'll never read something quite like it ever again. I find myself coming back to it as an adult; it is just as enigmatic and lovely as I remember. The art is lush and varied in style and medium, and it's always a pleasure to simply leaf through and admire it.

This book is bursting with imaginative artwork and creative stories. Tweens and younger Teens should find this particularly enjoyable - the artwork is detailed and complements the stories amazingly well. The stories are short but each one gives the reader glimpses of different viewpoints - what if's that encourage the reader to stretch his or her mind and expand conventional thought past the mundane. This book can be read and enjoyed by adults as well because the stories and graphics can affect readers in different ways and on different levels. My favorite stories were ERIC about an unusual exchange student and ALERT BUT NOT ALARMED about the concept of security in a volatile world.

This is a very different book by Shaun Tan, author of the also very different (and wordless but awesome) The Arrival. Tales from Outer Suburbia is a collection of 15 short stories that are beautifully and intriguingly illustrated, in the style of a graphic novel. The tales range in length from 1 page to a dozen. The content is bizarre and somewhat random on the surface, but given thought, the stories really do speak to some universal truths (racism, for one example, finding joy where there was only despair for another) of the world. Some of my favorites include the short but telling 'Water Buffalo' (is the Water Buffalo perhaps God?), the very sweet 'Eric' about a foreign exchange student who lives in the pantry, the poem (?) 'Distant Rain', and the very thought -provoking 'Stick Figures' (about people who are different), 'No Other Country' (about finding good things where you think there are none), and 'The Nameless Holiday' (about what you gain when you give up what is dearest to you). As far as target audience, this book is advertised as being for 7th grade and up. I personally think that this book would appeal to some middle schoolers - perhaps those who are a little different themselves, or those who are very smart. It would be a GREAT book to teach to middle-schoolers. Otherwise it might be a little over the heads of the younger teens. For anyone who appreciates things that are a little 'outside the box', this is a great read.

Remember when you were a kid and your imagination filled in the vast blanks in your experience? When you also had to place great trust in the words of grown ups, and there was no way you could cross-check the facts? Then you will probably enjoy this book. I think it will be a fine addition to a library that tries to encourage reading and using one's imagination to integrate seemingly unrelated stories and illustrations in this graphic novel. The artwork of the table of contents is very creative as are all of the illustrations. It is a kind of a writer's desktop... What if ____? Then ____ happens. This is an excellent imagination jumpstart for those who may be reluctant to commit to the joys of reading and seeing with the mind's eye. These stories make you want to read them to the end (which is not far away). A good choice for a Scholastic title. Pretty much ages 12 and up. I have never read anything else by this author to my knowledge, but maybe I should try some others.

Tales From Outer Suburbia is loaded with surprises within its pages that delight but never overwhelm. It is short stories with pictures. Beautiful, beautiful pictures. It is an art book with a bit narrative. It has poems that make sense. Scraps of thoughts that make little sense until it is taken together as one page. It is mythological ordinary (No Other Country) or ordinary mythology (Stick Figures). It is gently absurdist (Why Not Make Your Own Pet) and absurdly gentle (eric). It is lightly dark (Alert but Not Alarmed) and darkly light (Wake). It is quite simply: Wonderful.