The Viewer

Product Information

Introduce the book The Viewer by Gary Crew and Shaun Tan (make sure to choose the edition published in 2012 as it contains detail pertinent to these lessons). To browse photos within a folder, open a photo from the Folders view or File Explorer, then swipe right or use the arrow keys to see the next item.

There are a few key ideas that emerge; that all the mechanisms work to record and re-play images of violence and death, especially the collapse of successive human civilisations, whether by natural disaster or self-destruction. The use of circles, spirals and other cyclical patterns through the illustrations emphasis the idea of life and death revolutions, that things are on one hand mortal and immortal in their patterns. There are numerous ancient symbols of this, such as the serpent biting its own tail, and the concept of time as cyclical, rather than linear, is historically much more dominant. The belief that civilisation progresses continuously is ultimately a temporary illusion; things either change radically or collapse, the current ecological crisis of our own age proves the case. Still we go on as if oblivious to the slow disaster unfolding before us. The mechanisms around the boy’s eye as he watches the disks is quite elaborately worked out visually, though did not read clearly in print in the original edition. In 2011 I redesigned the book, given it was still in print, and the text was edited to accompany reproductions of illustrations closer to my original intentions in 1997. It’s now clear that different sections rotate and telescope inwards as the boy’s pupil dilates, so that eventually his pupil becomes that of a new big mechanical eye. Tan's writing and illustrations are always very thought-provoking. The Viewer is the story of a young boy who regularly finds treasures at the local dump. One day he comes home with a box full of instruments for looking at things, including a viewfinder toy. Through this he looks at the pictures, which appear to include moments in world history. When he looks again they have changed. Eventually he crawls inside the viewer.... Thought-provoking! Amazing illustrations and a story that will really make your mind work. I read this with a year 5 class and the pictures alone inspired some wonderful creative writing. The discussion we had at the end of the story was so lively because there are so many possible interpretations. The class produced some wonderful artwork based on this too. The Viewer was a much more collaborative project than most picture book creation, where there is often – and strangely – little direct communication between author and illustrator, something I was familiar with as an illustrator of many short stories and book covers. Usually a text is written and then given to an illustrator to consider, a process overseen by an editor. Gary and I discussed concept, imagery and book design together from the outset, before any text was written, along with our mutual editor, Helen Chamberlin at Lothian Books, then an independent publisher based in Melbourne.

Tristan is, for me, a symbol of all that is right and wrong with the human condition. We are endlessly curious, we try to fix things that are better left alone and we often don't know when to stop. These conditions of Tristan are, ultimately, what cause his problem at the story's end and, within each viewer, what is illustrated about man's progress in history. War, Destruction, Progress, Science have led us to new discoveries and yet, equally, have led to our downfall. It took me multiple reading to enjoy this as much as I do now and, ultimately, fully interpret what I think the story is sharing with us. As always with both Gary Crew AND Shaun Tan, I need a bit of warming up to appreciate them so this took an evening of close reading to glean some understanding.

Gary Crew has been awarded the Children’s Book Council of Australia Book of the year four times: twice for Book of the Year for Young Adult Older Readers (Strange Objects in 1991 and Angel’s Gate in 1993) and twice for Picture Book of the Year with First Light in 1993 (illustrated by Peter Gouldthorpe) and The Watertower (illustrated by Steven Woolman) in 1994. Gary’s illustrated book, Memorial (with Shaun Tan) was awarded the Children’s Book Council of Australia Honour Book in 2000 and short listed for the Queensland Premier’s Awards. He has also won the Wilderness Society Award, the Whitley Award and the Aurealis Award for Speculative Fiction. He lives with his wife Christine on several acres in the cool, high mountains of the Sunshine Coast Hinterland in Queensland, Australia in a house called 'Green Mansions' which is shaded by over 200 Australian rainforest palms he has cultivated. He enjoys gardening, reading, and playing with his dogs Ferris, Beulah, and Miss Wendy. In his spare time he has created an Australian Rainforest Garden around his home, filled with Australian palms. Gary loves to visit antique shops looking for curios and beautiful objects.Shaun Tan's illustrations are incredibly detailed and eerily beautiful, which fits Gary Crew's story perfectly: Crew's story is chilling as are Tan's beautifully evocative and graphic illustrations. A particularly deft touch is the repetition in each new slide of a figure carrying a type of recording or viewing device from cave paintings to a scroll to a book to a telescope to a box camera to a video camera. In fact, each single panel is consistent with the ones previous, recurring images like a falling star appearing throughout. This book repays close and repeated readings just to take in all the clever little details. The images were detailed and interesting, you could have good discussions about the images with a KS2 class, and have fun deciphering the hidden meanings and events that the viewer shows us.

Thank you for posting this - it looks fantastic. However, the version of the book that I've got doesn't have all the text that you've referred to in your planning. I would love to have the full text version as it is so rich - do you know where you got yours? After reading Crew’s ‘The Watertower’ I was excited to read more of his work! This picture book is very interesting and builds suspense throughout. It’s eeriness shines through in Tan’s creative and thought provoking illustrations. Now draw attention to the use of dashes in this character description (slide 2). There are three examples where dashes are used in pairs as parentheses – what effect does it have when this extra information is added? Dr Gary Crew, author of novels, short stories and picture books for older children and young adults, began his writing career in 1985, when he was a high school teacher. His books are challenging and intriguing, often based on non-fiction. As well as writing fiction, Gary is a Associate Professor in Creative Writing, Children's and Adult Literature, at the University of the Sunshine Coast, Queensland and editor of the After Dark series.

Secondary Year 6 leavers - Covid-safe transition activities and ideas It's been a chaotic year but Year 6 children still deserve the best ending to their primary journey Try reading the sentences aloud without the added words in the middle. The class will use similar grammatical features in the next lesson when they write their own character description. Similar ideas can be found in a previous book Gary worked on with South Australian illustrator Steven Woolman, The Watertower; a kind of domestic horror with alien possibilities, an inconclusive ending, symbolic clues and innovative visual design. This book has to be rotated halfway through, and is more visually suggestive than illustrative. Notably, Gary has been a strong advocate of picture books created for ‘older readers’ – essentially arguing that there is no reason for them to be only young children’s literature, since our interest in reading visual images does not decline with age. Shaun Tan's art is as always sensational. It works perfectly with Crew's wording enhancing and adding to rather and just accompanying the story. The second half of the story is focused on the art. The art within the cells of the discs tells the history of the human race. The art in these cells is almost mindblowing in its detail and variety. The colouring is so beautiful, mostly realistic but some are slightly off but it is all perfect. But it's not all about the cells its all the details around them which I won't go into. Earlier in the book when the reader first meets Tristan the colouring is vastly different, it's bright and white spaces befitting the child focus. The junkyard is smartly done it's all orange scales. As with all Tan work there is an insane amount of detail that you will always find something new. Together they tell a story of exploration and history in a way only they can. It is just beautiful. But I will say I was always going to love this I have never read a Shaun Tan I wouldn't recommend to everyone. A boy (Tristan) discovers a box at the dump, his curiosity takes over and he takes it home. Upon opening he discovers it's a view master with discs for him to view. These were of events in the world. Starts from how the world began past evolution, Egyptians, war and to the present day.