1. Alienation
2. Art motifs
3. Art techniques
4. Book design
5. Curiosity
6. Dystopian fiction
7. Historical fiction
8. Metaphors
9. Science fiction
10. Symbolism
11. Time
12. Toys
13. Visual literacy

Designed to intrigue as much as enlighten The Viewer is breathtaking in its scope of history presenting a dark, dystopian view of the world with a focus on horrors, man’s inhumanity to man, the inevitable cycle of growth and decay and the darker side of human nature. It follows Tristan, a child curious from birth, and his attraction for the rubbish dump where he finds ‘a box fashioned from dark wood and burnished metal’, crammed with treasures, most intriguing of which is a Viewmaster with three circular disks. The use of circles and spirals emphasises the cyclical nature of life and death and the concept of time being non-linear and never-ending. The book has a strong circular quality and ends on a mysterious note.

There is a distinct cinematic quality to the intricately detailed visual spreads which contain repeated images such as a small comet, traditionally regarded as a bad omen and a harbinger of doom.

Numerous optical and visual devices such as cameras, binoculars and telescopes are important components of the story and as Tan states “each image ‘disk’ has a figure walking beneath every picture, carrying a certain kind of visual device particular to their historical time: a caveman with a stick, an Egyptian scribe with a scroll, a medieval nun with a book, an Aztec chieftain with a telescope, a WWI nurse with a camera, a toxic-waste worker with a video camera”.

The book itself is another device, deliberately designed to have a mechanical quality with each turn of the page drawing us closer to the universe of the curious viewing machine.

1. Hachette Children’s Books Teaching Notes by Robyn Sheahan-Bright for “The Viewer’ by Gary Crew and Shaun Tan https://www.hachette.com.au/content/resources/9780734411891-teachers-notes.pdf
2. Shaun Tan website ‘The Viewer’ https://www.shauntan.net/viewer-book
3. Publishers Weekly Review of ‘The Viewer’ by Gary Crew and Shaun Tan https://www.publishersweekly.com/9781894965026
4. Eclectica Jan/Feb 2005 Reviews and Interviews. Colleen Mondor presents “A Discussion of Shaun Tan’ https://www.eclectica.org/v9n1/mondor_tan.html
5. Pantaleo, Sylvia reviews ‘The Viewer’ by Gary Crew and Shaun Tan in cmreviews X (20): June 4 2004 https://www.cmreviews.ca/cm/vol10/no20/theviewer.html
6. youtube January 21, 2021. My Layton from Bedlington Station Primary School reads ‘The Viewer’ by Gary Crew and Shaun Tan https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gFZHiL0d-gY
7. A.G. Gingell Learning Futures 4 February 2015.’ ‘The Viewer’; Illustrations for the Imagination’ https://ajgingell.wordpress.com/2015/02/04/the-viewer-illustrations-for-the-imagination/