Lost Thing

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The narrator’s parents are too busy keeping up with current events. This reminds me of a Freakonomics podcast Why Do We Really Follow The News? tl;dr: We follow the news to seem smart. We follow news for entertainment, treating politics like a kind of sport. But does following news really make you smarter, or do you just seem smarter? Are you following the right amount of news, or is your interest in current events perhaps leaving you without time for the small things in your immediate surrounds? Read the text to students and have discussions throughout on possible words the students may misunderstand. Viewing The Viewer‘: postmodern picture books for teaching and learning in secondary English education. The set of resources available here are based on Shaun Tan’s collaboration with Gary Crew in The Viewer. The “Scaffold for Reading Visual Images” can be easily adapted and used for The Lost Thing. Plot: A boy , still curious due to his youth, discovers an odd creature at the beach, a 'Thing' that appears lost. In this mundane monotonous world of sepia, The Lost Thing, goes by relatively unnoticed. The boy sets out to find the Lost Thing a home.

The Lost Thing received an Honourable Mention at the Bologna International Book Fair, Italy and an honourable mention at the CBCA Awards. In 2020, The Lost Thing won the Phoenix Award in the US, given twenty years later to a book that did not win a major award at the time of publication. Original illustrations from the book have been exhibited at the Itabashi Art Museum in Tokyo and eslewhere in Japan, Germany, Sweden and the UK.Il racconto è molto breve, folgorante. Forse troppo. Disegni meravigliosi (come sempre lo sono quelli di questo autore). E il messaggio è altrettanto chiaro e folgorante. Prendere tempo, vedere dove di solito non guardiamo, rallentare, incuriosirsi per tutto quello che c’è di diverso, sforzarsi di aprire l’angolo di visione, anche se impegni, distrazione e falsi obiettivi ce lo impediranno. In the audio commentary that accompanies the DVD of The Lost Thing, Shaun Tan describes the city where the boy lives as having ‘a dead heart’. Shaun Tan was born in 1974 and grew up in the northern suburbs of Perth, Western Australia. In school he became known as the ‘good drawer’ which partly compensated for always being the shortest kid in every class. He graduated from the University of WA in 1995 with joint honours in Fine Arts and English Literature, and currently works full-time as a freelance artist and author in Melbourne. Ask students what they think can be revealed about the society in which the action takes place. Guiding questions can be useful here, for instance: what might people find important or unimportant in this society? What is missing from this world (according to this image)? Would you like to go on a holiday to here? Why not? Responses should be recorded under the heading “Social setting”.

The Lost Thing is the story of a curious boy who discovers a gigantic, red, machine-like animal that appears to be lost. The boy pities this “lost thing” and therefore, decides that it is his personal responsibility to attempt to find out where this creature belongs. Shaun Tan wrote this book primarily to entertain and amuse his audience; however, he also included various controversial comments on the power of bureaucracy and various other social concerns. GARY CREW is Australia’s most awarded author for children and young adults having won the Children’s Book Council Book of the Year four times – twice for his young adult novels and twice for his illustrated books.This activity is intended for students to look closely at the images and simply observe before attempting any interpretations. It is suggested the process is modeled with a shared image and then be done individually with subsequent sharing done in groups. A range of Shaun Tan images are presented here from various books, which can be useful when needing a projection for teaching objectives. Discuss how authors and illustrators make stories exciting, moving and absorbing and hold readers’ interest by using various techniques, for example character development and plot tension (ACELT1605)

Any real meaning is left to the reader to find for themselves, rather than overtly stated or implied, with an encouragement towards a close visual reading against quite minimalist text. Why are the colours limited to industrial greys and browns? Why are there pieces of physics, algebra and calculus text-books framing every scene, and text written by hand on scraps of lined paper? Why do all the houses look the same, why is everything draped in shadow, what are those images of clouds about? What is that strange place glimpsed through a doorway at the end of an anonymous alley? What is the lost thing? Activity: After looking at the physical qualities of the lost thing and other “things” in the utopia scene, student can draw or construct their own “thing”; these creations can then be hung around the classroom to create a menagerie of “things” . One of the central themes teachers can explore is belonging. To get students thinking about different aspects of belonging, a mind map can be crafted. This can either be done on paper or, for those teachers wishing to employ digital learning tools, an online mind-mapping application like Bubbl.us or Popplet. This character is illustrated in a way to produce puzzlement and curiosity. It is an odd combination of mechanical and organic parts, something it shares with other “things” in the book. Tan has written that he got the idea for The Lost Thing after making a sketch of a crab while at the beach. While the lost thing doesn’t speak in this story, the impression is created that – despite its size – it is gentle and vulnerable. Crew won the CBC Book of the Year: Older Readers for Strange Objects and Angel’s Gate, CBC Honour Book for Memorial (2000), CBC Picture Book of the Year for First Light (1994); CBC Picture Book of the Year for The Watertower (1995). He is also the author of The Viewer and Mama’s Babies, which were CBC Notable Books for 1998 and 1999 respectively. The Lost Diamonds of Killiecrankie was also a notable book in 1996. Essay reviewersThis interview presents Tan’s detailed responses to questions about the way he thinks about his work and creativity. Great for comprehension activities. Watching an interview like this will give students confidence to interpret work in their own way because they hear Tan say he actively removes aspects that would otherwise narrow down possible interpretations. After reading the book together and giving students further time to read it for themselves and perhaps discuss their reactions with peers, distribute about six post-it notes per student. Take each of these questions in turn and allow time for students to write their responses on the post-it notes. Exposing students to these these influences presents an opportunity for a stimulating set of comparative exercises with students. In 2010 I wrote, co-directed and designed a 15 minute animated adaptation of The Lost Thing which went on to win an Oscar at the 83rd Academy Awards. You can read more about the film here.