Tan, S. (2001). The Red Tree. Melbourne, Australia: Arthur A. Levine Books.
When I initially read this picture book, I didn’t know what to say. I was left speechless from a mixture of shock and admiration.
One of the things I struggle with as an ELA teacher is wrapping my head around the idea of text beyond print text. I think that’s a side effect of university English classes where students read, reflect, write, and repeat. When I read The Red Tree, the text wasn’t the focus, but the illustrations. For me, this picture book was a powerful reminder that some things can’t be expressed with language. I found myself looking at the page with the large crying fish hovering over the girl who’s walking down a street and thinking, “Yes! This is how it feels!” The text on that page, “darkness overcomes you,” just doesn’t express the feeling the same way the illustration and its nameless little girl walking in this fish’s shadow does. My first university English paper was on the fallibility of language. To push that idea further, this text could serve as an example of one of the limits of language.
I was familiar with Shaun Tan’s work because I’d seen The Rabbits (1998), his partly allegorical fable about colonization, used in my Social Studies C & I course. I found that picture book left me with an uneasy feeling because there is no resolution (It ends with the question: Who will save us from the rabbits?). I can’t remember where I read it, but The Red Tree received mixed reviews, with many adults calling it a dark and depressing work. I wasn’t left with that impression at all. The tree at the end offers a message of hope and serves as a reminder that there is a bright spot at the end of dark days.
I didn’t pick up on the red leaf that appears on every page until I read about it, and I had to go back and look for it. How clever! (Hello, symbolism lesson.) The bright spot is there but sometimes you really have to hunt before seeing it, and if you’re not purposefully looking for it, you may miss it.
I like that the girl is nameless and never speaks. That makes it much easier to make her every reader. I’d be interested in Tan’s choice of red-coloured hair for his character. It makes her an outcast and an anomaly. She’s not an “every girl” if she has red hair. In a patriarchal society, why did he choose to use a female character? Are the depression rates higher among girls than boys?
Tan says at http://www.shauntan.net/books.html: The Red Tree began [as] an experimental narrative more than anything else: the idea of a book without a story. I've always loved Chris Van Allsburg's classic picture book ‘The Mysteries of Harris Burdick’ (1984) which is a great example of word-picture enigmas, exhibiting partial fragments of unknown stories and leaving the reader to use their imagination. It has no sequential narrative, which is something a picture book is ideal for – you can open it at any page, go backwards or forwards, and spend as much time as you wish with each image.”
I found out about The Mysteries of Harris Burdick at literature fair and I love it. The story behind the book itself is intriguing, but the If the illustration of the nun in the flying chair doesn’t give you the shivers, well, we can’t be friends. I love the idea of using the book’s images as writing prompts. I can picture me using this book the same way (no pun intended). The images would be great for a quick write or prediction tool.
The non-traditional text in this book opens a door to SLOs that explore experimenting with form.
Some automatically assume that picture books only cater to young readers. This book shatters that assumption. The red-haired girl reminded me of Kathleen Smith (@KikkiPlanet), the red-headed Edmonton blogger and Twitter user. She typically tweets about Alberta politics and on Christmas Day about drinking “mimosas on the patio in beef glasses … at Grandpa’s house.” Then on Dec. 30 she posted: “Today I lost my youngest son, my beautiful boy. Our hearts are broken. We thank all of you for your kind messages.” Mackenzie (Mack) Thomas Pawluk killed himself four days before his 19th birthday.
His grief-stricken mother took to social media to publicly confront her son’s suicide. In the Jan. 6, 2015 National Post, Smith said: “One of the first things the funeral director asked was, ‘Are you keeping the suicide part of it quiet?’ …
“We were going to talk about it. We were not going to be ashamed. When it is suicide, we whisper. We don’t with cancer, or accidental deaths. But when it is suicide people put a hand over their mouths and say, ‘Well, you know — you heard what happened.’”
She went on to say that she hopes by speaking out that it will help erase the stigma around suicide. I think this picture book, suitable for all ages, erases the stigma around saying, “I’m not OK.”
On Jan. 10, the Calgary Sun ran a news story about a Calgary teen’s Twitter campaign raising big bucks for mental health. A high school student created a viral social media initiative that supports the Canadian Mental Health Association. He said: “high school is a high-stress, high-anxiety time — every day in our society, it’s important to address this issue.” This picture book is a great way to get the conversation started.
This teen’s story also highlights the positive power of teens on social media, as we more often than not hear about the negative.
I now own a copy of this book. What a great tool to have on hand on Blue Monday or during the Bell Let’s Talk campaign!
When I initially read this picture book, I didn’t know what to say. I was left speechless from a mixture of shock and admiration.
One of the things I struggle with as an ELA teacher is wrapping my head around the idea of text beyond print text. I think that’s a side effect of university English classes where students read, reflect, write, and repeat. When I read The Red Tree, the text wasn’t the focus, but the illustrations. For me, this picture book was a powerful reminder that some things can’t be expressed with language. I found myself looking at the page with the large crying fish hovering over the girl who’s walking down a street and thinking, “Yes! This is how it feels!” The text on that page, “darkness overcomes you,” just doesn’t express the feeling the same way the illustration and its nameless little girl walking in this fish’s shadow does. My first university English paper was on the fallibility of language. To push that idea further, this text could serve as an example of one of the limits of language.
I was familiar with Shaun Tan’s work because I’d seen The Rabbits (1998), his partly allegorical fable about colonization, used in my Social Studies C & I course. I found that picture book left me with an uneasy feeling because there is no resolution (It ends with the question: Who will save us from the rabbits?). I can’t remember where I read it, but The Red Tree received mixed reviews, with many adults calling it a dark and depressing work. I wasn’t left with that impression at all. The tree at the end offers a message of hope and serves as a reminder that there is a bright spot at the end of dark days.
I didn’t pick up on the red leaf that appears on every page until I read about it, and I had to go back and look for it. How clever! (Hello, symbolism lesson.) The bright spot is there but sometimes you really have to hunt before seeing it, and if you’re not purposefully looking for it, you may miss it.
I like that the girl is nameless and never speaks. That makes it much easier to make her every reader. I’d be interested in Tan’s choice of red-coloured hair for his character. It makes her an outcast and an anomaly. She’s not an “every girl” if she has red hair. In a patriarchal society, why did he choose to use a female character? Are the depression rates higher among girls than boys?
Tan says at http://www.shauntan.net/books.html: The Red Tree began [as] an experimental narrative more than anything else: the idea of a book without a story. I've always loved Chris Van Allsburg's classic picture book ‘The Mysteries of Harris Burdick’ (1984) which is a great example of word-picture enigmas, exhibiting partial fragments of unknown stories and leaving the reader to use their imagination. It has no sequential narrative, which is something a picture book is ideal for – you can open it at any page, go backwards or forwards, and spend as much time as you wish with each image.”
I found out about The Mysteries of Harris Burdick at literature fair and I love it. The story behind the book itself is intriguing, but the If the illustration of the nun in the flying chair doesn’t give you the shivers, well, we can’t be friends. I love the idea of using the book’s images as writing prompts. I can picture me using this book the same way (no pun intended). The images would be great for a quick write or prediction tool.
The non-traditional text in this book opens a door to SLOs that explore experimenting with form.
Some automatically assume that picture books only cater to young readers. This book shatters that assumption. The red-haired girl reminded me of Kathleen Smith (@KikkiPlanet), the red-headed Edmonton blogger and Twitter user. She typically tweets about Alberta politics and on Christmas Day about drinking “mimosas on the patio in beef glasses … at Grandpa’s house.” Then on Dec. 30 she posted: “Today I lost my youngest son, my beautiful boy. Our hearts are broken. We thank all of you for your kind messages.” Mackenzie (Mack) Thomas Pawluk killed himself four days before his 19th birthday.
His grief-stricken mother took to social media to publicly confront her son’s suicide. In the Jan. 6, 2015 National Post, Smith said: “One of the first things the funeral director asked was, ‘Are you keeping the suicide part of it quiet?’ …
“We were going to talk about it. We were not going to be ashamed. When it is suicide, we whisper. We don’t with cancer, or accidental deaths. But when it is suicide people put a hand over their mouths and say, ‘Well, you know — you heard what happened.’”
She went on to say that she hopes by speaking out that it will help erase the stigma around suicide. I think this picture book, suitable for all ages, erases the stigma around saying, “I’m not OK.”
On Jan. 10, the Calgary Sun ran a news story about a Calgary teen’s Twitter campaign raising big bucks for mental health. A high school student created a viral social media initiative that supports the Canadian Mental Health Association. He said: “high school is a high-stress, high-anxiety time — every day in our society, it’s important to address this issue.” This picture book is a great way to get the conversation started.
This teen’s story also highlights the positive power of teens on social media, as we more often than not hear about the negative.
I now own a copy of this book. What a great tool to have on hand on Blue Monday or during the Bell Let’s Talk campaign!