Viewer

For Tristan, the city dump was a treasure trove full of history. He would take each sad, broken, and dirty thing apart to see how each could be made to tick, whir, or ring. Then he found the box. It was filled with lenses, a microscope, a monocle, a magnifying glass, and a Viewmaster. What Tristan saw through the dark orbs as he clicked the viewer was like nothing he had ever seen before. He clicked more slowly, then crept into bed, trembling...

Afraid, Tristan tried to pull the viewer from his eyes, but he could not. He tried to look away, but he could not. Something compelled him to keep looking, to try—against his own wishes—to actually enter this thing, this machine.

In the morning when Tristan had not come down, his mom called him. There was no answer. She went to his bedroom, knocked and went in. Tristan's bed was empty, but on his desk was a box, its lid closed, its latch firmly locked. Which was curious... very curious indeed.

Author Biography: Gary Crew was born in 1947 in Brisbane, Queensland, Australia and he began writing fiction—mostly teenage, young adult fiction—in 1985. He has twice been awarded the Children's Book Council of Australia Book of the Year Award (for Strange Objects, 1991, and Angel's Gate,1993). Gary has also been twice shortlisted for the Edgar Allan Poe Mystery Fiction Award for Youth in the U.S. and awarded the American Children's Book of Distinction Award. He also won the Ned Kelly Prize for Crime Fiction. He has twice won the CBC Book of the Year in the picture book category. He is the series editor of Lothian's After Dark series of macabre tales. His books are published internationally. ILLSTRATORBIO: Award-winning artist and author Shaun Tan has achieved international recognition for his work, including the CBCA Picture Book of the Year Award for this book, an Honor Book Award for Memorial (with G. Crew) and The Lost Thing, an APA Design Award, an Honorable Mention at the Bologna Book Fair, three Aurealis Awards, and Spectrum Gold and Silver Awards. In 2001 he was named best artist at the World Fantasy Awards in Montreal. A graduate of the University of Washington in 1995, with honors in fine arts and English literature, he lives in Perth, Australia.