Whether they are being read to or exploring Tan’s world on their own, Cicada will be a childhood tale that resonates with them into adulthood (as Toni Ungerer’s illustrated version of Han Christian Anderson’s The Little Match Girl still resonates with me). If you have a younger reader in your orbit who may be feeling different from their peers or left out by those around them, this is a story to spark all sorts of discussions.ĭespite being set in an office (not the usual haunt of either cicadas or children), Cicada is accessible to younger readers. Somehow, by the end of those 150 words office life feels like the punchline of a cruel joke.īut Cicada is also a conversation starter. If you are an adult, Cicada will make you question how you spend your days. By the end, ‘tok, tok, tok’ represents liberation, freedom, and that glorious feeling that all is right with the world. It is injustice, it is abandonment, it is cruelty. The refrain ‘tok, tok, tok’ represents everything we feel but can not always express in words. The book is almost completely devoid of colour and deals with adult life and adult issues. Unappreciated and bullied, he goes to the roof of his building, where something extraordinary happens. We pay respects to all First Nations people of Australia, and. Depending on your own view point, it is a story about feeling alone before finding your tribe, about being exploited before taking control, about losing your way before finding your calling.Ĭicada is not a tale to make you laugh. Tok Tok Tok Shaun Tan's latest picture book tells the story of a cicada who works in a boring office job. Readings acknowledges the Traditional Owners and Custodians of the land on which we work. In only 150 words (many of them repeated), Tan evokes powerful emotional responses as he illustrates literally and metaphorically what it is like to be different, to be alone, and to be marginalised.Ĭicada has any number of interpretations, and it is a story I expect every reader will identify with.

But this brilliant short story is of course more than that. On the surface, this is a commentary about the inanity and heartlessness of 21st century corporate life, told through the eyes of the eponymous Cicada.

Cicada shaun tan book