Eric

This small story was a delightfully simple and curious tale of Eric, the foreign exchange student. He's small enough to sleep in a tea cup in the pantry, but his exact nature is left to our imagination. My fondness for the Japanese Hobonichi planner lead me to explore Shaun Tan's story of Eric. Just delightful.

Shaun Tan's witty tale about a leaf who comes to stay as an exchange student gives us new perspective on the world around us, and the gifts that can be left behind. This is a hard to find book by an award winning and brilliant illustrator. Buy it if you can!

Fun and easy to read.

This is a tiny book - but super cute. It is an adorable story for anyone who has had an exchange student - its sweet and quick and the illustrations are adorable!

Eric tells the story of an anthropomorphic leaf who comes to live with a family for a while as a foreign exchange student. It was originally written for adults, not children, and was published as part of a collection of stories. This specific stand-alone book of Eric is the first time it's published separately, and now it's marketed to kids.The story: The author Shaun Tan has a section of his website about this story, Eric. Basically, it's about a foreign exchange student who comes and visits a family. The exchange student is an anthropomorphic leaf. The family tells about his time with them and about wondering whether he was happy or not. It's about the mood of cultural differences and them wanting to be good hosts and show him around to make his trip memorable and fun but them not knowing whether the leaf likes various activities and living arrangements. The story is more about mood, and not so much about plot. Each page will show scenes from Eric's visit and have a few sentences from the family's perspective often wondering how Eric is feeling. Illustrations are a similar style to the cover picture, but generally much more detailed. They may tend to be grayscale and not every page is in color. All of the art is nice, it's just sometimes art can be in grayscale. The style is more like fine art (remember, it is a story originally for adults, but now marketed to kids).Production quality: I got the hardback version of this. Pretty much, given the chance, I will get any Shaun Tan book. His most famous book is The Arrival, which is a children's book and is similar to this one but with a story more for kids (no words for that one, as compared to complicated language here). Eric was first published as part of a collection of stories in Tales from Outer Suburbia. I have that book, and my paperback copy of the collection of stories has smaller pages. This kids book has bigger pages, and since it's an art book, that's nice.Recommended age level: This is listed as for ages 5 and up. For a 5 year old, parents will have to read it to children. And, I think that it can go to younger as long as parents read it. Around age 3 is when a child can handle paper books, rather than board books, although many can do so younger. This story was originally written for adults, which has advantages and disadvantages. A disadvantages is that the way it's written is not for early readers. It's short, and there are only a few sentences per page. But the language is more complex and there isn't repetition or other things that books do to work with early readers. For a child reading independently, I think they have to be almost to where they can read simple chapter books. It's more complicated than most picture books of this format and length. An advantage to this being written for adults is that if you have to read it to the child, there's something there for you. The best kids books are written for both kids and parents. The absolute worst in kids books is when little kids want to reread something that does not appeal to the adult who has to read it. Since I like Shaun Tan books, and since this was written for an adult, it's a safe quality book for me to have around. If my kids were to ask me to read and reread, it's OK with me. I read this to my kids ages 1, 3, 5, and 7. They didn't seem to like or dislike it when I read it to them, and afterwards said that they liked it.Pricing: Ok... soooo... I got Tales from Outer Suburbia several years ago, and I got paperback. The paperback has smaller pages than this stand alone copy of Eric, so I'm getting extra over my decade old book because I get bigger prints of art. But I see that as of today there is a hardcover that is for sale and the pages of it are just as big as the pages in this stand-alone copy of Eric. And, hardcover Eric costs more than hardcover Tales from Outer Suburbia, which has the Eric story plus several others (and all of the stories basically don't have violence or sex so are fine to give to kids even if written for adults). Of course, pricing can change, but as of today, I think you should skip this book and just get Tales from Outer Suburbia so that you get the Eric story plus several other stories and even more art.Overall, it's a well produced book. The story is more for adults than kids. I am a big fan of the artist/author, and I like this book. The story is more about mood, than plot and the language is not for kids to read independently and instead for very young kids to be read to. Since this was published as part of Tales from Outer Suburbia, I think it's a good idea to compare pricing and page size for that book and consider getting the collection of stories instead. That said, Eric is perfectly fine. It's a nice edition, the pages are thick, and the printing is good quality.

Uniquely sweet book full of social justice issues. Ripe for deep discussions!

Good quaility!! Fast delivery~I was looking foward to get this book, cause it's pretty hard to get among Shaun Tan's collection.It's the exact one that I'd expected.

How much do I LOVE this little book? I bought five of them and gave them to my friends for Xmas!

O livro é bem pequeninho mas lindíssimo, um charme . Tem um relevinho na capa que é só !!! Adorei :)

I really enjoyed the story and the way it is drawing. It is a deep subject and still I laughed a lot!!!!

Having thrown this in with a selection of classics and popular series books to mark my daughter's acceptance into the realm of the "free reader", I was rather judgmental of the size of the book (tiny) and volume of prose (minimal). However closer inspection revealed a charming story with a rich use of language covering extremely valuable topics. My daughter read it to me this evening and we dissected the words and subject matter. Afterwards, I re-read it to her and her younger brother (reception age) who found the amusing illustrations utterly hilarious and has declared that he shall be Eric for World Book Day 2020. Fantastic book for kids, thrilled at the purchased. I'm sure we'll get to the remaining books from the parcel later this week!

Dieses kleine Büchlein des großartigen Zeichners Shaun Tan wurde gleich nach Erhalt zu einem meiner Lieblingsbücher. Schon die Gestaltung des Einbandes - auch die Innenseiten -, der haptische Genuss beim Darüberstreichen , das macht mich (Erwachsene) - glücklich. Und Eric, eine so faszinierende aus der Welt und in die Welt gefallene Figur. Dem Fremden mit Staunen begegnen - beide: Gastgebende Familie und Gast Eric - wie aufregend so etwas sein kann! "Das ist bestimmt was Kulturelles" sagt Mama. "Solange er nur glücklich ist." Der erste Satz könnte, - wenn bekannter - vielleicht als Redwendung taugen so - und dabei auch zuversichtlicher - wie das Satzende vom Satz "Ach, Luise, laß...das ist ein (zu) weites Feld." aus dem Roman "Effi Briest" von Theodor Fontane.

読めば読むほど愛しさの増す作品で、大好きです。購入できて本当に嬉しいです。