Young Tristan. a curious boy who rescues all sorts of objects from the rubbish dump. finds an old Viewmaster in its elaborate box. complete with a set of disks. He finds that these represent the ages of humankind. seen as a cyclical structure in which patterns of growth and decay are repeated. Tristan becomes more and more drawn in to the world of the disks. and eventually disappears. The book is full of metaphors and symbols of seeing and watching. circularity and never-endingness. in a complex. fantastical tale. which was Shaun Tans first picture book.

 

There are 32 pages in this book. This is a picture book. A picture book uses pictures and text to tell the story. The number of words varies from zero ('wordless') to around 1k over 32 pages. Picture books are typically aimed at young readers (age 3-6) but can also be aimed at older children (7+). This book was published 2012 by Hachette Australia .

Gary Crew is well known for his rich, multi-layered and intensely suspenseful bestselling novels for young adults. Four times the winner of the CBC Book of the Year Award, as well as other numerous awards, Gary was a high school English teacher for eighteen years, before turning to university lecturing and full-time writing. He lives in Queensland. Shaun Tan is an Australian artist, writer and film maker. He won an Academy Award for The Lost Thing, a 2011 animated film adaptation of a 2000 picture book he wrote and illustrated.