The Lost Thing

It is not often that I'd say the film was better than the book, but this time it's true.

The DVD of Shaun Tan's "The lost thing" is heaps better, and more cheery than the book.

In a typical Shaun Tan-esque 'steampunk' world, while out collecting bottle tops at the beach, a boy discovers an enormous, bizarre and lonely creature that nobody else appears to notice.

Feeling sorry for it, he decides to find a home for his new friend, even as others warn that 'some things don't belong anywhere'. But is this reallty true? Can a thing be just plain lost?

A modern day parable and cautionary tale for all ages.

One of the best features is that it has Tim Minchin narrating the story, so so right for the role.

It is a DVD of 16 minutes, but you'd be doing yourself a dis-service if you only watched the feature - check out the audio commentaries by Shaun, and director Andrew Ruhemann, and the other Special Features.

And there aren't many DVDs which come with their own hard-back books. The 50 paged "What miscellaneous abnormality is that? : a field guide" is referred to in the story and is an illustrated depiction of some of the weird creatures which inhabit the film.



The book was an Honour Book in the CBCA 2001 Picture Book of the Year awards (which came with the note that some of these books are for mature readers).
Sound interesting - click here to place a hold