Lost and Found by Shaun Tan is a book to be pored over again and again.  Although it was just published in 2011, the book actually consists of three stories written and illustrated by Tan in the late 1990s and early 2000s.  Though fairly different in subject matter, they all touch upon the theme reflected in the title.

The first story, The Red Tree, centers upon a young girl who is having a bad day and the marvelous thing she finds at its end.

In the second story, The Lost Thing, a boy finds a strange lost thing and tries to find it a home, which is more difficult than it seems.

Tan concludes the book with a story written by John Marsden called The Rabbits.  This one is perhaps the easiest to interpret – a description of what is lost when colonists displace the native people on the land they conquer – and also the darkest.

For those less careful or more inquisitive readers, Tan includes an author’s note at the back where he elaborates upon the themes discussed within the three stories.  This addendum serves to give meaning to the stories in case the reader missed it, but also may prevent the reader from interpreting the stories for herself.  (I say this from experience, since I got something slightly different from one of the stories and had to re-think it when I read the explanation.)

The words Tan and Marsden have selected are nice, but it’s the illustrations that make this book a standout (not surprisingly).  Tan’s illustrations are so wonderfully unique and immediately recognizable as his style.  Sometimes I was reminded of pieces I had seen by Bosch and Dali – Tan’s got a great sense of the weird and pays attention to every little detail on every single spread – but his art is also unlike anything else.  The words themselves contribute to the illustrations.  Sometimes they’re handwritten, sometimes they’re “pasted” onto the page like a collage, sometimes they dance around or fall down the page.  The colors are rich and evoke just the right mood for each story.  It’s difficult for me to describe just what the art is like, since I am by no means an art aficionado, so I’ve given a couple examples here.  

I think kids would definitely be enthralled by Tan’s art.  There’s so much detail and a reader could spend a long time just studying the pages to ensure every little thing has been spotted.  The themes are pretty heavy, though, and full understanding comes with a bit more age, particularly when you consider the meaning is given with so few words.  There’s lots of room for interpretation.