Memorial by Crew & Tan

Memorial is by internationally acclaimed children's choice author Gary Crew and multi-award-winning illustrator Shaun Tan.

Gary and Tan’s (1999) ‘Memorial’, tells the story of a tree planted in memorial and stone monument erected many generations ago. By placing emphasis on the old Morten bay fig, Crew and Tan create a sense of time passed and an eternal spirit which remains, even in the heart of a busy city. The fig was planted in 1918, after Old Pa came home from the Fist World War as a ‘Shrine of Remembrance Lest we forget’ (Crew& Tan 1999 unpaged).

The authors attempt to provoke thought in a way that is ‘interesting and understated’ with regards to the enduring topics of war, remembrance and the nature of memory itself even as it takes the form of a collective memory and comes to form a national narrative. Tan and Crew’s picture book demonstrates the “Anzac” spirit as it continues to exist in the youth of today, relating the sometimes futile struggles of the present to that of the Gallipoli Campaign.