Shaun Tan’s mesmerising picture book perfectly captures the wonder and terror of the childhood dreamworld, says Lifers author MA Griffin
Rules of Summer appeared in the autumn of 2013, but the story of my relationship with this remarkable book doesn’t start until the following year. Manchester’s Central Library had just re-opened after a £50 million refurbishment and one sunny morning that spring I rode the tram to St Peter’s Square with my wife and three-year-old daughter. There’s room enough to borrow six books on a kid’s library card and I was scheming; the little girl was getting five, I figured, and I was having one. I’d always loved Edward Gorey and when I saw Rules of Summer by Shaun Tan that morning, (the lack of article is important by the way – these are only one of many possible lists of weird childhood regulations) I was immediately mesmerised. I bought my own copy, and as I busied myself writing my second novel, Lifers, through that spring and summer, Tan’s book became a sort of bible for everything I was trying to achieve.
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