Skip to main content

IMWAYR - Shaun Tan's The Singing Bones

This week I discovered the amazing book The Singing Bones by Shaun Tan. Shaun Tan is best known for the wordless narrative The Arrival, a somewhat abstract (and yet universal) look at what it is like immigrating to a foreign country. The Singing Bones is inspired by the classic tales by the Brothers Grimm.

Cover of Shaun Tan's The Singing Bones. Image from Amazon.com
Each of the Grimms' tales is represented by a single image. Tan first created sculptures for each tale, and then placed them in a scene before taking a photograph. In the book, each image is accompanied by one or two paragraphs from an English translation of he original tale.

Image result for the singing bones
"Little Red Cap", from The Singing Bones. Image care of My Best Friends Are Books.
The images are beautifully done and convey so much expression and each really does tell a story. 

Image result for the singing bones
"Hansel and Gretel", from The Singing Bones. Image care of Booktopia.

Even the tales I was unfamiliar with, I really felt like the images captured their essence. 

The Singing Bone by Shaun Tan, from The Singing Bones published by Allen and Unwin
"The Singing Bone", from The Singing Bones. Image care of My Best Friends Are Books.
I highly recommend taking a look at this book. It is beautiful, inspirational, and unique. I would love to do an activity with students where they attempt to create a single image to represent a story or concept, or even the revers - take a single image or sound and have the students use it as inspiration to create a story or other work of their own.

Comments

  1. Thanks for sharing this! I am a huge fan of Shaun Tan but have not seen this book before. I am excited to get a copy and try the activity you suggest.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Let me know if you do try the activity! I would love to know how it goes. Thanks for reading <3

      Delete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

LIBE 477: 3D Printers in schools: Who? What? How?... Why?

Last week, when musing on my Final Vision project , I was looking into creating a website to help teachers and librarians with access to 3D printers, but no idea how to use them. But why use 3D printers in schools at all? What use are they to teachers, librarians and students? Kids' drawings turned into 3D printed objects. Image from The Guardian . With school budgets getting cut all the time ( with numerous consequences ), and models for classrooms can get expensive. If you have access to a 3D printer, you can bypass the cost of many classroom tools and just make your own. Want a human skull? Make one ! Need a 3D model of your province? Totally doable ! You can even use a 3D printer to build replacement parts on broken tools or models you already have, getting more life out of them. Just this one tool can be used for all kinds of classroom objects, like making rewards for students - they can even choose their own! A 3D printed model of the anatomy of a human heart. Th...

LIBE 477 Inquiry 4: Bringing Libraries to the World

At the beginning of author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's TED Talk, " The Danger of a Single Story ", she tells of her experiences with stories as a young girl in Nigeria. Growing up reading books from Europe and America, the only stories she new were of people with white skin and blue eyes, eating apples and doing other distinctly European activities. Since those were the only stories she had read, that was all she knew to write. It's a powerful example of why it's important to have stories available everywhere by local writers. Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie "The Danger of a Single Story". Video care of YouTube. Writing and publishing books around the world would surely have amazing benefits, but is easier said than done. Adichie mentions in her talk the non-profit  Farafina Trust , which currently provides annual writing workshops in Lagos, Nigeria, and their dreams of building and refurbishing libraries there. To be inspired to write, people first need...

LIBE 477 Inquiry 3: Supporting Teachers' ICT Development

I have never been drawn to technology. In fact, I'm much more likely to seek, out very old tools and technology, such as learning to spin and dye my own wool. That being said, I can still recognize that technology is inevitably becoming a part of our lives and I will gladly integrate any tool that that will make my life easier as a teacher or improve the experience of the students in my classroom. Reluctant as I am, there are certainly teachers in schools even less inclined towards technology that myself. I believe that my reluctance towards technology puts me in a better position to understand the more technology-averse teachers in the school and as the teacher-librarian, I would be in a great position to try and reach out to support their development of ICT skills. 3D printers are incredibly satisfying to watch. Video by WildRose Builds. One of the most scarce resources for teachers is time. When in their busy schedule of writing lesson plans, marking and (hopefully) livi...