The Storybarn Selects… From The Reader Bookshelf

The Reader Bookshelf 2024 is here. A carefully curated collection of literature for adults and children, exploring a different theme each year, this year’s theme ‘Wonder’ is about being bold, being curious and being open. Staff and volunteers around the country have selected 12 titles for children which explore what 'Wonder' means to them.

This month, Reading Heroes Coordinator, Stephen, shares his thoughts on Shaun Tan's Tales From Outer Suburbia.

Despite spending thirty five years in teaching (and literally DECADES as a Head of English), my acquaintance with children's and young adult literature was always - at best - needs must, and I always made sure that I had somebody with the requisite knowledge and enthusiasm to recommend appropriate new fiction for our Years 7-9 teaching groups.

In my new role in the Reading Heroes team at The Reader, I've had to start reading a lot more prose and picture books aimed at a variety of young audiences. Our expert team has selected a vast range of literature to facilitate such reading and learning, and it is such a delight to pick up a random book from our libraries and to remember the thrill of reading as a child, and – even better – reading to my children as a parent. I have to say, though, much as I love and appreciate Don't Worry, Little Crab, I have this nagging feeling in the back of my head that Chris Haughton's early years existential crisis classic isn't really aimed squarely at me.

But whatever your age, if you don't think Shaun Tan's beautiful Tales From Outer Suburbia is (at the very least) an absolutely brilliant visual and spiritual delight, you must have had your very soul excised at some stage of your life!

I'm not really sure what age group Suburbia is aimed at, as there are sections which could entertain a five year old, and others which would certainly entrance an adult readership.

The book is a mixture of prose, poetry and graphic art - and if you're a fan of David Lynch, Edward Hopper, Wes Anderson or Tim Burton, you might see their influences, but TFOS (I'm still working on a hip abbreviation/acronym) is pretty much uncategorisable, and exists in its own, very original oeuvre.

Along with Tan's own impossibly beautiful and melancholy illustrations, Tales From Outer Suburbia’s collection of stories and poems flits effortlessly between gentle strangeness and full-on surrealism, and we enter a world where a tiny, leaf-headed, 'exchange student' takes up residence in ordinary kitchen pantry (Eric); a giant, beached dugong appears on a suburban summer lawn (Undertow); and an ageing couple reminisce about their nightmare honeymoon trip to another dimension in the wonderful Grandpa's Story.

Along the way, Tan alludes to darker themes of cultural appropriation/racism, ageism, exile, poverty, nuclear Armageddon and ecological breakdown - all in a dreamlike, metaphorical manner that's there if you want to see it, but not so didactic as to be preachy or to detract from the central elements of his narrative.

Maybe I'm reading too much into this (I'm definitely NOT!), but there are shades of William Burroughs'/David Bowie's cut-up technique in the wonderful poem Distant Rain, and as for the meaning of the truly haunting Stick Figures, I'll probably be working out that particular conundrum in the few years I have left on this planet.

You can either think too hard about Tales From Outer Suburbia (like me), or just let it wash over you - like the best work of dream art you'll experience all year. A fabulous book – and highly recommended.