by Shaun Tan
ages: 11+
First sentence: “When I was a kid, there was a big water buffalo living in the vacant lot at the end of our street, the one with the grass no one ever mowed.”

Someone — Tricia? Andi? Heather? — wrote in a review I read recently that one doesn’t read Shaun Tan books as much as experience them. Which I totally have to agree with: this isn’t a book (it’s not even really a proper graphic novel; more like a grown-up picture book; it reminded me of a more sophisticated Stinky Cheeseman) as much as it is an experience.

I also wasn’t expecting this book after reading The Arrival. It’s got the same surrealness, but I wasn’t expecting, well, words. The stories were odd, to say the least, but that’s one of the things I like about Tan: he takes the everyday and makes it fantastic. There are fifteen short stories in this collection, and all of them sound quite ordinary — The Nameless Holiday, Alert by not Alarmed, Stick Figures, Eric, and my favorite, Distant Rain — and yet, there’s this element that turns it from the ordinary to extraordinary: the art.

As was evident in The Arrival, Tan is an amazing artist. Which is really why you should pick up this book: to marvel at the genius that is Shaun Tan.

Buy it at: Amazon, Powell’s, or your local independent bookstore.