Rules of Summer by Shaun Tan (review)

Big brothers set the rules, and little brothers violate them at their peril. Such is the lesson learned in this lushly eccentric summer interlude where a young boy tries to keep up with his imaginative older brother; text is almost entirely limited to the rules themselves, while illustrations reveal the stories behind them, the consequences of their breach, and the relationship behind the trajectory. At first the older sibling comforts and protects his younger brother from the fantasy consequences; for instance, when the younger boy breaks the rule “never leave a red sock on the clothesline,” a huge red rabbit threatens the scene while the boys huddle together in hiding. Soon, though, the younger boy starts to test his limits against these arbitrary rules, and his big brother lets the consequences play out, excluding the boy when he tries to argue or ask for a reason. Finally, the younger boy is left all alone, imprisoned in the lonely shelter of waiting for an apology until, presumably, the older brother decides that a pesky little brother is better than no companion at all and gives in so that they can enjoy the last day of summer together. Tan is a master of the cryptic visual metaphor, providing just enough guidance through the few words to allow readers to construct their own analogous situations of coping with a sibling, whether they are the controlling ones or the annoying tagalongs. The oversized format encourages sustained attention to the painterly textures and quirky details while also suggesting the fragile bond between the boys in a much larger world; beyond richly colored backgrounds, Tan makes his human figures small in a landscape that’s relatively barren in terms of realistic urban structures but abounding in fantasy creatures. The effect is an externalization of the deeply felt emotions of childhood, and it is heightened by the smallness of the single lines of text centered on mostly blank verso pages that feature only accidental scribbles, as if to indicate that so much of what happens can’t be put into words, and words themselves tell less than half the story.