The Red Tree - Softcover

Shaun Tan

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0734410875 ISBN 13: 9780734410870

Publisher: Lothian Children's Books, 2008

Synopsis

When a child awakens with dark leaves drifting into her bedroom, she feels that "sometimes the day begins with nothing to look forward to, and things go from bad to worse." Feelings too complex for words are rendered into an imaginary landscape where the child wanders, oblivious to the glimmer of promise in the shape of a tiny red leaf. Everything seems hopeless until the child returns to her room and sees the red tree. At that perfect moment of beauty and purity, the child smiles and her world stirs anew.Shaun Tan's illustrations are remarkable for the way they combine and react upon each other. He creates an otherworldly labyrinth of visual ideas joined with the familiar immediacy of the little child, and condenses them into scenes of extraordinary depth and insight. Every child will appreciate the book's life-affirming message but it will be equally successful with all readers. With sensitivity and wonder, the evocative images in The Red Tree open a window to our inexplicable emotions and tell a story about the power of hope, renewal and inspiration.

About this title

About the Author

Award-winning artist and author Shaun Tan has achieved international recognition for his work, including the CBCA Picture Book of the Year Award for The Rabbits (with J. Marsden), an Honor Book Award for Memorial (with G. Crew) and The Lost Thing, an APA Design Award, an Honorable Mention at the Bologna Book Fair, three Aurealis Awards, and Spectrum Gold and Silver Awards. In 2001 he was named best artist at the World Fantasy Awards in Montreal. A graduate of the University of Washington in 1995, with honors in fine arts and English literature, he lives in Perth, Australia. The Red Tree is his fifth book (and the first published in North America).

From School Library Journal

Grade 3 Up-An astonishing fable in picture-book format. A girl moving through landscapes of hopelessness and isolation encounters an image of hope on the book's final page. Through the weight of her sorrow, readers conclude, on both intellectual and emotional levels, that living in despair is waiting for hope. Tan's sophisticated mixed-media illustrations include fantasy and dream elements, and subtle symbolism packed together with an array of art techniques ranging from complicated cut-paper collages to Drescher-like paintings, but serious. These complex pictures send visual impressions powerful enough to cause readers to gasp as a new page is revealed. The simple, direct text ("darkness overcomes you" or "sometimes you just don't know what you are supposed to do"), often poetic ("the world is a deaf machine"), serves both as an entryway into the complicated illustrations, and as an enhancement to them. Perhaps too sophisticated in its point of view for some youngsters, this is nonetheless a book of amazing beauty, high quality, and distinguished artistry.
Liza Graybill, Worcester Public Library, MA
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Edition details

• Publisher: Lothian Children's Books
• Publication date: 2008
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0734410875
• ISBN 13: 9780734410870
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 32