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"Lost and Found" by Shaun Tan

Author:

Shaun Tan

Publisher:

Arthur A. Levine

Reviewed by:

John Stewig, Carthage College

Tan, Shaun.Lost and Found.Arthur A. Levine Books, 2011.

It is always a pleasure to come across something unexpected and this compilation of three previously published titles by Tan reinforces that pleasure.Tan’s art for a book by John Marsden and two titles that Tan both wrote and illustrated are here presented in a generously oversized volume.The jacket repeats the hard cover design, but enhances the strange red, spiky main character object depicted.The title is raised for added textural interest.

These stories are indeed unusual.What to make of them?Certainly each of the tales needs to be read and re-read because despite the brevity of the language. They stimulate many questions. The first, The Red Tree, follows a lonely little girl through a world which is a “death machine,” as she encounters a fish the size of a large building, among many other inexplicable objects.The brilliant red wordless double spread conclusion ends on a note of hope.The second, The LostThing, features the multiple-legged cover character, noticed and described by the nameless narrator, who puzzles about what he has discovered.Though others cannot see this object,the young narrator tries his best but in the end, leaves this object in a place which may or may not be a satisfactory resolution.The third tale, The Rabbits by John Marsden, is an aptly unusual companion to the two tales Tan authored and illustrated.Invasion and domination seem eerily connected to events in the world today.The visual fantasy created by Tan expands and enhances the minimalist text.The meanings embedded in the tales are not easily deciphered, but are thus worth savoring.

Tan’s art is full of small, quirky details that viewers would miss in a quick walk through any of the three tales.Deep intense colors depict strange (i.e. unfamiliar) places and even less expected occupants of these places.For example, even though the Marsden book, The Rabbits, evokes a common enough mammal, the visual depiction of this invading hoard does things we can’t anticipate.A key part of the attraction of all three of these tales is their unexpectedness.We can return again and again to puzzle over, try to understand and appreciate this presentation.

John Stewig, Carthage College

The Center for Children’s Literature

Kenosha, Wisconsin

 Click here for the Word Document.