1. Art techniques
2. Curiosity
3. Dystopian fiction
4. Fear
5. Friendship
6. Graphic novels
7. Homelessness
8. Loneliness
9. Resilience
10. Science fiction
11. Visual literacy
12. Wordless picture books

Bruce Whatley has produced more than 80 illustrated children’s books since 1992, when he moved from an advertising career to authorship. His work achieves a cross-over between the graphic narrative and the child’s illustrated book.

This story was ten years in the making, and required a long gestation through construction of 3D computer generated worlds, to selected scenes drawn in fine shades of grey lead pencil. The large format hardback production promises gravity, and Whatley’s daringly large, minutely detailed illustrations bring a deeply expressive and impressively skilled set of images to what is in effect an art book.

In Part One Ruben is pictured as a homeless child in a world of junk that he has collected around himself, to make himself feel safe. Only on the third page does the text begin. Ruben is a little like the book’s maker, for he too collects words, images, dreams and scribbles in a book. Every day Ruben goes exploring out beyond the ruined old city to the Block City where immense pipes, conveyor belts, cogs, robots and trains service whoever is up there needing what the trains bring in and the pipes supply. There is a lot of steam and smoke. Ruben’s smallness, his vulnerability, and his courageous curiosity are on display in this first part.

In Part Two Ruben encounters another homeless child, Koji. They are both cautious, afraid, and dearly want to get back to their safe places.

In Part Three we meet the controlling robots who sense the children’s presence as they negotiate a maze of giant cogs, tunnels, girders, belts and wheel spokes. High above them are what the children call The Unknowns. When Ruben does return to his safe place we understand that the broken and forgotten objects with which he has surrounded himself speak to him of his place in the world, we see only his back. Part Three is an ‘epilogue’, which in three images offers Ruben and Koji a way out, though we can’t be certain whether this escape is a wish, a dream or a fact.

1. Bruce Whatley website includes pages on ‘the meaning of ruben’ and ‘the making of ruben’ http://brucewhatley.com/
2. Scholastic Teaching Notes for ‘ruben’ by Bruce Whatley https://resource.scholastic.com.au/resourcefiles/8505855_67627.pdf
3. Educate Empower blog 21 March 2018 Vanessa Ryan Rendall reviews ‘ruben’ by Bruce Whatley. Includes some teaching activities https://educateempower.blog/2018/03/21/ruben-by-bruce-whatley/
4. Kids’ Book Review 15 March 2018. Sarah Steed reviews ‘ruben’ by Bruce Whatley http://www.kids-bookreview.com/2018/03/review-ruben.html
5. Dims Write Stuff blog 5 July 2029. Dimity Powell reviews ‘ruben’ by Bruce Whatley http://dimswritestuff.blogspot.com/2019/07/review-ruben.html
6. Read Plus 9 October 2017. Fran Knight reviews ‘ruben’ by Bruce Whatley https://www.readplus.com.au/reviews/ruben-by-bruce-whatley
7. Australian Government: Australian Institute of Health and Welfare. ‘Australia’s children’ Provides statistics and information on housing and homelessness for Australian children. https://www.aihw.gov.au/reports/children-youth/australias-children/contents/housing/homelessness