This being Shaun Tan, however, you're in for quite the surprise. Either way, that door or cubicle wall adds another unsettlingly element to the evidence.Īnd then it really grows worrying as the cicada, now homeless, heads for the rooftop, alone. That element's ambiguous: it could be other workers or even the boss observing or it could be signalling that the beating is being meted out in secret.

We're looking in, as if through a door, as if in collusion. The co-worker who doesn't like our cicada presses his highly polished shoe down on the data entry clerk's chest, bringing his full weight to bear, while the other bears silent, collaborative witness. The humans tower above the cicada, knocked down on his back and therefore helpless to move. Instead he has to scuttle downtown, twelve blocks, the timed docked from his wages. He's also homeless, living hidden in one of the walls. While the humans clock off work on time whether their work is finished or not, our cicada remains until his work is done. Quite evidently he needs no appreciation, either. That grey disk sits within a grey cubicle, within a seeming maze of other grey cubicles, identical save for the fact that the rest are all empty. This is Shaun Tan's first author-illustrator book in five years, and his most important and moving fable since The Arrival.Deep inside one of a thousand, grey windowless skyscrapers - identical save for the amount of sky that they scrape - sits a solitary cicada, dutifully at his desk.

A story for anyone who has ever felt unappreciated, overlooked or overworked but dreams of magic, from Australia's most acclaimed picture book creator, and first BAME winner of the Kate Greenaway Medal. But one day, something truly extraordinary happens. Tok Tok Tok! Cicada works in an office, dutifully working day after day for unappreciative bosses and being bullied by his co-workers. Synopsis - A stunning picture book for anyone who has ever felt unappreciated, from Shaun Tan, Academy Award winner and winner of the Kate Greenaway Medal 2020. First edition, first printing - signed by the author/illustrator by way of custom-designed bookplate affixed to the title page.

Cicada tan shaun