THE ARRIVAL, By Shaun Tan, Graphix, May 20, 2025, Paperback, $16.99 (ages 7-16)
Follow a migrant’s story through a series of wordless images in Shaun Tan’s The Arrival, which is now available in paperback.
A man leaves his wife and child in an impoverished town, seeking better prospects in an unknown country on the other side of a vast ocean. He finds himself in a bewildering city of unfamiliar customs, peculiar animals, curious floating objects, and indecipherable languages. He is helped along the way by sympathetic strangers, each carrying their own unspoken history: stories of struggle and survival in a world of incomprehensible violence, upheaval, and hope. —Synopsis provided by Graphix
I love wordless books. They leave so much room for readers to fill in the blanks, make up dialogue and decide the story’s intricacies on their own terms.
The Arrival takes that experience to the next level.
Shaun Tan’s graphite pencil illustrations are exquisite. From the intricate detail to the emotion felt throughout, this book grabs your attention from the start and holds you through the end.
In a time when there’s so much rhetoric around immigration, The Arrival brings the focus back to the most important element — the migrants themselves. The main story, as well as the little vignettes throughout — are moving and well worth discovering. This is a fantastic book.
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