Category Archives: their picture book life

shaun tan + rules of summer giveaway

07.15.2014

Shaun Tan is truly a picture book hero of mine. His work is mysterious and deep and dark and beautiful. It hits so close to home and one never outgrows it. In fact, you may have to grow a bit to fully understand it.

Let’s talk about his picture books, okay?

My favorite: The Red Tree.

I’ve written about this one before. According to Shaun Tan, the story is “emotions as landscapes.” Specifically, feelings of depression, overwhelm, alienation, and confusion.

click image(s) to enlarge

Those feelings become Tan’s signature settings: strange, mechanical worlds. He also leaves small clues in the paintings. In this case, the tiny leaf on every spread foreshadows the red tree to come. See the tiny orange-haired girl above? And that red leaf by the fire hydrant, on the gutter?

Tan’s works may be dark, but each concludes open-ended. There’s room for a red tree to magically sprout. There’s room for what comes next.

“There is always a glimmering tentacle of hope.”

—Shaun Tan

Most celebrated: The Arrival. A wordless graphic novel meets picture book that portrays an immigrant experience in a way that looks like fantasy but captures the feeling fully and realistically.

“…a story about somebody leaving their home to find a new life in an unseen country, where even the most basic details of ordinary life are strange, confronting or confusing – not to mention beyond the grasp of language.”

—Shaun Tan

Made into an Oscar-winning animated short film: The Lost Thing. Here too, there’s so much to the setting. Layers and layers of visual clues. We recognize the story the (now grown) boy is telling us; it’s familiar. Even the place is familiar despite its cold, strange menace.

A boy who collects bottle tops is a likely candidate to notice something else out of place. Something huge, but that no one else sees or can see. It’s a lost thing and it belongs with other lost, magical, wonderful things that very few notice. Especially after they grow up.

“‘the lost thing’: a vague sense of forgetting something important, losing the inspirations of childhood, or being worn down by the pressure of adult pragmatism and cynicism.”

—Shaun Tan

The Lost Thing might be childhood, or the curiosity of childhood. It might be kindness or connection. It might just be a lost thing. (In this one, readers can search for tiny squiggle-like arrow shapes on each page.)

I highly recommend, Lost and Found: Three (2011), which is an anthology of: The Red Tree, The Lost Thing, and The Rabbits, with Tan’s commentary at the back. All three titles are not available individually in the U.S., so it’s a great way to get three in one! Plus, The Rabbits, Tan’s collaboration with John Marsden, is incredible.

Tan’s latest: Rules of Summer (2014). Two boys (brothers) and 16 rules. The first: “Never leave a red sock on the clothesline.”

“Ideally we might study this story in a similar way to dreams, looking for some waking insight within irrational play.”

—Shaun Tan

While some rules seem more random than others, there are commonalities. There’s always some threat of consequence (e.g. creepy red rabbit and black birds throughout). And there’s always some dynamic push-pull going on between these two boys, one clearly older than the other.

For me, the absence of parents is important. It feels like these two characters live in a precarious, unpredictable world (perhaps all children do to some extent.) Because of that, their relationship is that much more important. And more fraught. They are everything to each other.

The older brother protects the younger, instructs him, punishes, shuts him out, and betrays him. In the end though, always hope, in this case in the form of a rescue and the most scrumptious summer fruit parade that would make Wayne Thiebaud proud.

Not to mention Tan’s trademarks: vast, desolate spaces and bizarre machines and creatures and layers and layers of paint.

(And check out my first Their Picture Book Life post on ISOL!)

Thanks to Scholastic for images! You can check out Shaun Tan’s website and he’s got a blog too, with process work, paintings, and more.

Scholastic has generously provided one copy of Rules of Summer to give away!

Enter to win by leaving a comment on this post! It’s that easy.

I’ll contact the randomly chosen winner by email for your mailing address.

(Enter until Monday, July 21 at midnight; open to North American residents only—sorry about that, far flung international readers!)

their picture book life: ISOL + a giveaway from la librería!

their picture book life

05.27.2014

I’m starting another series! It’s called “THEIR PICTURE BOOK LIFE” in which I’ll periodically showcase one picture book creator and her contribution to the form. I’m excited!

First up, Argentinian author/illustrator, ISOL (aka Marisol Misenta). She won the prestigious Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award in 2013 (which has just been awarded this year to Barbro Lindgren).

It’s clear from ISOL’s books that she possesses a unique, creative mind as both artist and storyteller—bizarre, wonderful, edgy. And her books have that special thing I love: they appeal to anyone of any age.

“I don’t think about ages…

my wish is that you can

enjoy the book even if you [are]

two or twenty or sixty.”

—Isol from this interview.

Take It’s Useful to Have a Duck (Tener Un Patito es Útil) for example. It’s a board book. You know, a super simple book for the youngest little readers and hearers of stories. But it’s so well-exectued and so layered and smart that I found myself amazed and delighted when reading it.

ISOL never underestimates her audience and this accordion style book told from two different perspectives—boy and duck—is basically genius. When the boy thinks the duck is giving him kisses, the duck thinks the boy is waxing his beak.

“The skillful way that Isol handles these subtexts allows her books to be read on mulitple levels. The child is constantly discovering something new, while the adult is rewarded on a perhaps more profound psychological level.

—Ulla Rhedin, here.

ISOL’S latest is Nocturne: Dream Recipes (Nocturno) in 2011.

It’s incredible. Each spread is a picture of a possible dream. And when you turn out the light, the dream, the picture, glows in the dark. GLOWS IN THE DARK!! There’s even one children can make themselves, “the drawn dream.”

Thanks to Groundwood Books for Nocturne images!

I must also mention Beautiful Griselda (La Bella Griselda, 2011), the book that introduced me to ISOL’s work. It’s so like a traditional fairy tale—it’s strange, dark, and even gruesome, with an ending to puzzle over. And it’s wonderful.

“Princess Griselda was so beautiful that almost everyone she met fell

head over heels in love with her.”

Literally, men’s heads fell off when they saw Griselda. Their heads fell off! The book deals with vanity and being loved versus being feared.

Doggy Slippers is a series of poems by Jorge Lujan developed with the contributions of Latin American children aged 5 to 13 talking about their pets. (ISOL and Lujan have collaborated on two books so far.)

The poems are so very childlike and delightful and rich. And ISOL’s illustrations really shine with her characteristic bold shapes, hand drawn lines that can’t be contained, and her own childlike quality that manages to convey so much emotion. Darkness, then light, confusion, then comfort.

Not to mention this book is completely hilarious.

“My bunny understands me.

When I’m sad she can tell right away.

And though she walks on four feet

and she likes to bite,

she’s nicer than the nicest people.”

What strikes me most about ISOL’S work is duality and things in opposition. Take the dual perspectives in It’s Useful to Have a Duck. The dark and light of Nocturne. In Petit, the Monster, the opposition of good and bad and the way ISOL plays with and morphs them. Her illustration style as well: bold shapes and intricate patterns with her hand drawn and coloring out of the lines quality—simple and childlike while at the same time sophisticated.

How cool is she? Wouldn’t you know it, she’s not just a writer, illustrator, and designer, she’s a singer too. ISOL’S about to release release a new album with her band SIMA called “Novela gráfica.”

A big shout out has to go to Groundwood for publishing ISOL’s work in English and to Elisa Amado for translating it.

/ / / / / /

Now, on to LA Librería and a wonderful giveaway!

Based here in Southern California and providing books for kids in Spanish, LA Librería is a treasure. They host events and sell the most beautiful books from Latin America and Spain.

I first learned of them at their LA Times Festival of Books booth and it was those very beautiful books that drew me in. Their books are perfect for Spanish speakers and/or Spanish learners. For parents of either. For bilingual teachers of bilingual students. For anyone who appreciates wonderfully crafted books.

Chiara & Celene are giving away 4 Spanish language books by ISOL to one reader of This Picture Book Life for our very first giveaway! (It’s been hard for me to contain my excitement while cooking this up!)

The books: Intercambio Cultural (2000, paperback), Secreto de Familia (2003, paperback), Regalo Sorpresa (Los Primerisimos) (2010, paperback), and La Bella Griselda (2010, hardcover).

Here’s how to enter the giveaway: