Tiny Leaf Men and Other Tales From Outer Suburbia: Re-Presenting the Suburb in Australian Children’s Literature.

Authors

  • Kelly Oliver University of Wollongong, Australia

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.21153/pecl2011vol21no1art1140

Keywords:

Shaun Tan, Tales From Outer Suburbia, suburbs, Australian children's literature

Abstract

This paper explores how, through word and image, Tan’s Tales From Outer Suburbia challenges stereotypical representations of the suburban. Typically, suburban spaces have been represented as aesthetically bland, mundane, and ornamental. Tan takes these tropes and ironically re-deploys them anew, and in doing so undermines anti-suburban sentiment, which has dominated Australian literary and popular culture.

Although the notion of anti-suburbanism in Australian fiction has been well documented, its presence in children’s literature has received far less attention. As a case study, Tales From Outer Suburbia, signals the ability of children’s literature to present more positive representations of suburbia because of its inherent commitment to the socialisation of children, which is prioritised over the tradition of anti-suburbanism.

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Author Biography

  • Kelly Oliver, University of Wollongong, Australia

    Kelly Oliver is a PhD candidate at the University of Wollongong. Her doctoral thesis is on representations of suburbia in literature for children. Other areas of interest include the grotesque and the cultural, and social history of Australia.

References

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Published

2011-01-01

Issue

Section

Articles

How to Cite

“Tiny Leaf Men and Other Tales From Outer Suburbia: Re-Presenting the Suburb in Australian Children’s Literature”. (2011) Papers: Explorations into Children’s Literature, 21(1), pp. 57–66. doi:10.21153/pecl2011vol21no1art1140.

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