A new children’s book from Shaun Tan is coming later this year.
Levine Querido Books will publish Tan’s Hometown in the summer, the press announced in a news release. It calls the graphic novel a “visually gorgeous, emotionally stunning (and frequently funny) meditation about what it means to belong, and what makes us who we are.”
Tan, an Australian illustrator and author, is known for his books including The Red Tree, The Lost Thing, The Arrival, The Bird King, The Singing Bones, and Eric. The Arrival, a wordless graphic novel about an immigrant coming to a new land, won a Locus Award, and The Lost Thing was adapted into an Oscar-winning short animated film.
In a 2018 interview with Kirkus about his book Tales From the Inner City, Tan said, “When I’m writing a story, I often don’t have a message. I wonder what it would be like to see a fish in the sky, bring it home, and show your mom and dad. I’m quite surprised that, in the end, they reveal something that’s more to do with human nature.”
“Imagine living in a perfect world,” Levine Querido Books says of Hometown. “You have a loving family, a beautiful home, awesome friends and about three hundred loyal pets. Everything is just as it should be. Until one day, when a stranger arrives. A stranger who looks just like you. A stranger with a very disturbing message…”
The press calls the book “a uniquely powerful, funny, and insightful exploration of identity, and what it means to be home.”
Hometown is slated for publication on Sept. 1.
Michael Schaub is a contributing writer.
CORRECTION: An earlier version of the story misidentified the format of Hometown. It is a graphic novel, not a picture book.
