Favorite Quotes from Shaun Tan

I think stories that represent the world as hopeless or dark are valid and some of them I really enjoy but the truth is that there is hopefulness in every situation.

Drawing a good picture is like telling a really good lie – the key is in the incidental detail.

--http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2009/jul/27/shaun-tan-unexpected-details

All fiction is false; what makes it convincing is that it runs alongside the truth.

I just find myself strongly attracted, in an empathetic way, to images of isolated figures moving through vast, often confounding landscapes.

I would go so far as to say that all art and literature is about some kind of disconnection, brokenness or discrepancy.

I'm very interested in things that are overlooked, and in trying to find value in things that are not considered valuable.

--http://www.bookslut.com/features/2009_07_014748.php

Want To Read More Books about Immigration?

Check out these titles about the immigrant experience:

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Fresh off the Boat by de la Cruz

Threads and Flames by Friesner

Uprising by Haddix

Voss: How I Come to America and Am Hero, Mostly by Ives

Someone like Summer: A Novel by Kerr

Life, After by Littman

Riot by Myers

A Step from Heaven by Na

Habibi by Nye

The Night of the Burning: Devorah's Story by Wulf

Learning To Fly by Yee

This month’s book: The Arrival by Shaun Tan

What a pleasure to come back to this book!  The Arrival is a graphic novel completely without words (unless you count the ones in an imaginary language). The setting it futuristic, but the artwork is all sepia tones and distressed-looking pages.  The beginning is heart-breaking: the first pictures are of household items, then a family picture, then you see the picture being wrapped and packed in a suitcase, then a picture of a wife with her hand over her husband’s hand on top of the suitcase, and it’s clear that they’re very sad.  The husband tries to comfort his wife and daughter as they see him off at a train, and the wife and child return to a city overshadowed by some kind of danger, represented by a serpent-like tail.  In Part II we see the man on an ocean journey with many other people.  They arrive to a scene much like Ellis Island –long lines, physical exams and paperwork.  Then you finally get a glimpse of the city the man has arrived in.  The artwork is amazing, and clearly shows how strange and disorienting the city is for the new arrival.  Many people have pets, all amazing fantastical creatures, and a particularly adorable one, who becomes his constant companion, is waiting for him in the room he rents.  Part III follows the man as he tries to find work.  He encounters people who help him, and each of their stories is told in a series of images.  Most of the people are fleeing terrible things.  In Part IV he tries a few jobs, and is told more personal stories of other immigrants.  In Part V he sends for his family, who come to join him in the new land.  The books ends with his daughter passing on to a new arrival the kindness shown to her father when he arrived in the new land.  There are parts of the book I don’t understand (what is the dragontail menacing his old land?), but some things I understand better as I read the book over again.  The Arrival conveys the new immigrant’s bewilderment at his new surroundings better than any book with words ever could.  Review by Stacy Church

Want to read more books like The Gravedigger’s Cottage?

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Here are some more books about life going on after a death in the family

Defining Dulcie by Paul Acampora

Boy2girl by Terence Blacker

Feels Like Home by e. E. Charlton-Trujillo

A Swift Pure Cry by Siobhan Dowd

The Key to the Golden Firebird by Maureen Johnson

Let's Get Lost by Sarra Manning

Girlhearts by Norma Fox Mazer

After the Wreck, I Picked Myself up, Spread My Wings, and Flew away by Joyce Carol Oates.

Cures for Heartbreak by Margo Rabb

A Gathering of Shades by David Stahler, Jr.

Broken Soup by Jenny Valentine

Me, the Missing, and the Dead by Jenny Valentine

‘tis the season…

I guess for me it’s ‘tis the season to be busy!  Sorry for neglecting the blog.  Interested in learning more about Chris Lynch? 

Some things you probably don’t know about him:

Before he became a writer, he worked as a furniture mover/truck driver and a house painter!

He went to Emerson College (right here in Boston)

His favorite television show is The Simpsons (why am I not surprised by that?)

If you want to read an interview with him, check out this link http://authors.simonandschuster.com/Chris-Lynch/16756570/author_revealed

Review of The Gravedigger’s Cottage by Chris Lynch

First of all, I apologize for my delay in posting this review!

This a book full of sadness.  The sadness of losing a parent (or two).  The sadness of losing a pet (or a long list of pets).  The sadness of moving to a new house in a new town, and then finding out your new house is called “The Gravedigger’s Cottage,” and that you and your brother are referred to as “Diggers” or “Diggerkids.” The sadness of watching your remaining parent withdraw further and further into his own anxieties until it seems like he doesn’t have any space for you anymore.  Fortunately, the book isn’t all about sadness –it’s also quite funny.  Even the stories of the pets deaths have a certain black humor to them, although I have to tell you that I had to skip over at least one of them.  I love the way Sylvia tells the story of her life with her brother (half brother, actually), Walter, and her father.  Her father has moved them to this cottage by the sea, supposedly to start a new life in a place not haunted by all those deaths, but after they move in, their father starts to obsess about fixing what’s wrong with the house (which is a lot).  Soon he’s not leaving the house at all, not even to do their annual back-to-school shopping trip, and it’s up to Sylvia and Walter to snap him out of it.  Review by Stacy Church

This month’s book: The Gravedigger’s Cottage by Chris Lynch

Copies of this month’s book are available in the YA Dept.  Review to follow!