"You thought you knew suburbia..."

“You thought you knew suburbia…”

...intones the inside jacket cover of Shaun Tan’s illustrated short story anthology. Indeed, suburbia is one of those dreary, modern by-products of post world war cooke cutter neighborhoods and dreams of moral idealism. But in suburbia, Shaun Tan finds and captures cross-cultural lessons, creativity, and imagination, proving that fascination can be found within the most mundane subjects.

Peppered, no, fused with careful illustrations, this book is aesthetically and philosophically valuable. I love when pictures illuminate the text and don’t just repeat it. These illustrations do just that. If you read the words alone, then look at the pictures, or vice versa, you might get different perceptions of the foundational philosophies meant by the fusion of the two.
From Tan's novel "The Arrivals." My new Thanksgiving centerpiece.

A couple of my favorite selections are “Eric” and “No Other Country.” Both stories espouse cross-cultural understanding through unconventional means, for example, “Eric” is a foreign exchange student who is curious about his host family’s activities and culture…sounds normal, right? But the illustrations depict Eric as a mouse-sized alien who inhabits his host family’s pantry until he eventually returns to his home country, leaving behind a glowing collection of, well, read the book and ponder it yourself. “No Other Country” is about a family who moves to a new land, only to accidentally stumble upon a magical “inner courtyard”—a peaceful place quite unconvential to reality. “No other country has this,” explains the Greek woman at the end of the story. If only we could all appreciate each others’ national novelities, as well as our own.

But the book contains many more stories, snippets for thought, and intelligent musings. “The Amnesia Machine” contains political ponderings. “Stick Figures” and “Grandpa’s Story” use imaginative means to explain everyday occurrences and tradition, respectively. There’s no end to the delight this book brings. Read carefully, and pass it on. Who says reality can’t also be magical?

**Ed.’s note: Also try Tan’s wordless graphic novel, “The Arrivals.” Filled with art that I’d love matted on my wall some day, this touching (and again, unconventional) expose on an immigrant’s experience will leave you smiling and pondering outside the box (and spending hours researching Tan’s work online!) 5 stars.