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The Arrival Hardcover – January 1, 2007
Shaun Tan evokes universal aspects of an immigrant's experience through a singular work of the imagination. He does so using brilliantly clear and mesmerizing images. Because the main character can't communicate in words, the book forgoes them too. But while the reader experiences the main character's isolation, he also shares his ultimate joy.
- Print length128 pages
- LanguageEnglish
- Dimensions9.45 x 0.55 x 12.44 inches
- PublisherHodder Children's Books
- Publication dateJanuary 1, 2007
- ISBN-100340969938
- ISBN-13978-0340969939
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Product details
- Publisher : Hodder Children's Books; Reprint edition (January 1, 2007)
- Language : English
- Hardcover : 128 pages
- ISBN-10 : 0340969938
- ISBN-13 : 978-0340969939
- Reading age : 7 - 13 years, from customers
- Item Weight : 1.98 pounds
- Dimensions : 9.45 x 0.55 x 12.44 inches
- Best Sellers Rank: #2,282,216 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #381,268 in Children's Books (Books)
- Customer Reviews:
About the author
Shaun Tan grew up in Perth, Western Australia and works as an artist, writer and film-maker in Melbourne. He is best known for illustrated books that deal with social and historical subjects through dream-like imagery, widely translated throughout the world and enjoyed by readers of all ages. Shaun is the recipient of an Academy Award for short animation, the Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award in Sweden and the Kate Greenaway Medal in the UK. He lives with his wife, two children, a dog, a parrot, some fish and stick insects.
Customer reviews
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Top reviews
Top reviews from the United States
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I fell in love with the story, told entirely using pictures. No words in the entire book. I admire the art style which is a blend of richly detailed, realistic portraits of people and a sci-fi-esque highly imaginative environment.
I immediately ordered a copy of the book for us and one for a friend who is an ESL teacher (English as a Second Language). Some of her kids come to America knowing zero English. What a great way to immediately show them a book with substance that seeks to show we understand a smidgen of what they are going through.
Our copy will be useful for discussions with our exchange students and as an interesting, beautifully illustrated coffee table book.
There are multiple things I love about this book but here are my top two:
1. As the immigrant meets people the story shifts to the new person’s immigration story. There are at least 4-5 different stories included, each touched my heart.
2. There is an underlying theme of the seasoned immigrants helping the new immigrants, passing along skills, information, directions, food—the cycle is woven throughout the pages of this book.
We highly recommend this book and are looking forward to exploring more of the artist’s work.
This is a very, very carefully designed work that may remind readers of the stunning experience the first time you read "Maus: A Survivor's Tale," the famous graphic novel about the Holocaust by Art Spiegelman. (In fact, Spiegelman's praise for "The Arrival" appears on the back cover of the book, calling this "something new and exceptionally worthy.")
"The Arrival" tells the story of a young father who leaves his wife and daughter behind in their impoverished and dangerous homeland to journey to a distant city based on the New York City of an earlier era. Like millions of immigrants over the past two centuries, he is the patriarch of a family bravely going on ahead to establish a home for his family in a new world.
Many of the beautifully rendered images in the book are straight out of Ellis Island historical materials. HOWEVER, the stunning innovation Tan adds to the story is the way he moves from those historical snapshots of the immigrant experience -- to a wildly off-kilter New York City in which the Statue of Liberty looks oddly like a pair of welcoming giants in exotic costumes. New York's pigeons become strangely beautiful flying fish. The English language of advertisements, newspaper headlines and grocery store packaging becomes a bizarrely cryptic new alphabet that we can't quite understand.
Common American foods take on exotic, fanciful shapes and textures. Even ordinary American pets become exotic animals that seem to have fallen to earth from a science fiction novel.
Are you glimpsing the point of this visual slight of hand? As we follow the story of this immigrant -- we SEE America through the eyes of an immigrant. The strangeness of our skylines, our symbols, our language, our foods, our pets, our architecture -- actually looks strange to us, as readers.
This is what makes this book ideal for reading over and over with young readers -- spotting the dozens of subtle ways Tan twists and turns elements of the tale to help us not only empathize with the immigrant and his family -- but to actually feel his disorientation as we read the book!
Some chapters of the book are very dark. As immigrants meet in this new land, across the cultural and religious chasms that may separate them, they share stories of danger and oppression in their homelands. One immigrant tells a horrifying story of a war that left him crippled and homeless. Another immigrant tells a tale of what seems to be ethnic cleansing in his homeland.
Once again, Tan's imagery is rooted in stories we know -- but he enlarges and re-imagines the visual grammar of these stories until the ethnic cleansing becomes a terrifying tale of gigantic, faceless technicians with flame throwers who tromp through the streets of a village.
Although the story becomes dark at several points, there is nothing in the book that is more troubling than scenes in "The Chronicles of Narnia." And each moment of darkness throws into dramatic relief a moment of great joy as the immigrants realize how much they are thankful for in their new community. There's even a strange kind of Thanksgiving dinner at one point in the book.
Wherever you live in the world, as you read this, "The Arrival" is the story of someone you know -- a friend, a neighbor, a relative -- or perhaps this is your story captured vividly in a new form for a new century.
Having been exposed to European graphic novels at an early age, my life long affair was instilled early on, and continued to develop as an adult. Americans are still just starting to discover this world, and would be stunned at the huge variety available in any French or Belgian bookstore. Not just for children, but regarded as a serious art form, the graphic novel is so much more than the rag pulp comics commonly available in the USA.
"The Arrival" by Shaun Tan fits none of these established models. It has no written text, but none are needed as the drawings are wonderful in depicting the story, and effective in evoking the emotions to be "drawn" in.
It is the story of a man who is forced to leave his bleak homeland to seek opportunities in a new world. The new world is so strange and alien to him that he struggles to find footing, but eventually he begins to adapt.
The stylistically timeless mono-toned drawings are gorgeously shaded. The faces are very expressive. The work is presented like an old leather bound book. The pages have virtual weathering.
This book will resonate with anyone who understands the challenges of immigration, but also, as a masterpiece of illustration art.
Absolutely a must in your library.
Top reviews from other countries
Reviewed in India on December 23, 2023
Voyage en image dans cet air qu'est l'exil,
où chaque moment est impressionnant,
où chaque page nous émerveille.
Les dessins sont magnifiques!