The Arrival

Bibliography

Tan, Shaun. 2007. The Arrival. New York: Arthur A. Levine Books. ISBN 978-0439895293.

Brief plot summary

A small, poor family in an oppressive country decides they must immigrate to a new land. The father must set out alone to find work and create a place for his wife and child so that he can send for them to join him in the new land.

Critical analysis

In this unprecedented graphic novel, both wordless and filmic, the strangeness of leaving one’s home and going to an alien country is evoked in a vision that owes as much to sepia-tinted silent film as it does to such fantasy masterworks as David Lindsey’s Voyage to Arcturus and its imitators in C.S. Lewis’s Space Trilogy and Madeleine L’Engle’s A Wrinkle in Time.

Once “read” it is remembered by the mind’s eye as a silent film, but experienced in the heart with a depth of strangeness and otherness that only the most original works of art and poetry and music offer up. I don’t think that it is entirely unintentional that the creatures and cityscapes remind one of Hieronymus Bosch and the German expressionists as strange as this juxtaposition might seem.

While The Arrival is often scary, it never becomes terrifying. There are new friends to be made in this strange, new land where the architecture, the machinery, and the plants and animals are all only just recognizable in their shape and function, and their size seems to be portrayed according to their emotional impact on the father. This could easily become a terrifying descent of nightmare proportions; however, the deep humanity the protagonist finds at critical junctures and in humorous situations always rescues the reader if sometimes at the last moment.

A great deal of soft humor and deep empathy emerges in this immigrant’s relationships with his house-pet, landlady, and new friends as he learns to navigate this unfamiliar world. At the right time and in the right way he is at last able to send for his wife and child in the deeply satisfying conclusion. I can’t get this book out of my mind. It is the greatest artistic expression of the immigrant experience that has ever come my way.

Review excerpts

"Considering the terror that fuels debates about immigration throughout the western world, Tan's message is pointed and utterly relevant, not just to teens struggling with their own feelings of alienation, but to all humankind. It is an absolutely marvelous book." – VOYA
"… the story's immediacy and fantasy elements will appeal even to readers younger than the target audience, though they may miss many of the complexities. Filled with subtlety and grandeur, the book is a unique work that not only fulfills but also expands the potential of its form." – Booklist, Starred Review

"An astonishing wordless graphic novel blends historical imagery with science-fiction elements to depict—brilliantly—the journey of an immigrant man from his terror-beset land of origin to a new, more peaceful home." – Kirkus Reviews

"…Tan has created a powerful yet wholly accessible visual metaphor that conveys the complete sense of displacement and confusion that is part of the immigrant experience." – Cooperative Children’s Book Center Choices

"Tan captures the displacement and awe with which immigrants respond to their new surroundings in this wordless graphic novel." – School Library Journal, Starred Review

"The artwork is ornate with detail. Tan has created a whimsical, fantastical world that will be so foreign to the reader that they will understand what the man is experiencing. Wordless graphic novels can be a hard sell sometimes, but Tan has successfully told this elaborate story." – Library Media Connection

Awards / Best Books

Boston Globe-Horn Book Award for Excellence in Children’s Literature, 2008

Cybil Award Finalist, 2007

New York Times Best Illustrated Children’s Books of the Year, 2007

Parents’ Choice Award Gold, 2007

ALSC Notable Children’s Books, 2008

Amazon Editors’ Top 10 Books, 2007

Booklist Editors’ Choice, 2007

Bulletin Blue Ribbons, 2007 (Bulletin of the Center for Children’s Books)

Choices, 2008 (Cooperative Children’s Book Center)

Horn Book Fanfare, 2007

Kirkus Best Young Adult Books, 2007

Publishers Weekly Best Children’s Books, 2007

School Library Journal Best Books, 2007

YALSA Best Books for Young Adults, 2008

YALSA Great Graphic Novels for Teens, 2008

Classroom Connections

Dorothy Gish’s 1916 short feature Gretchen the Greenhorn will give students the sepia feeling of early 20^th century European immigrants coming to America.

Paintings by Hieronymus Bosch will give students some context for the frightening sense of shape and form the father encounters in the new world.

A Wrinkle in Time will give imaginative young readers a taste of otherworldly narrative.

Include The Arrival as part of a unit on immigration. Students can search for key facts in the history of immigration to the United States.  Include information about reasons for migration, statistics, and trends. As a culminating activity students can write a letter to a friend or relative back home from the point-of-view of an immigrant at the turn of the century. In your letter describe your journey over to America, your arrival at Ellis Island, and how you are adapting to life in your new country.

Students view some of the images that inspired Shaun Tan in his illustrations. Some examples include:

1.   Coming South, 1886, Tom Roberts

2.   Over Land by Rail by Gustave Dore, 1870

3.   Photographs of Ellis Island, New York, 1892–1954

4.   1912 photography of a newsboy announcing the sinking of Titanic

Locate the illustrations where Tan has referenced these images, and compare them with the original images. Look for similarities and differences in the images, the effect of visual referencing, why those particular images may have been used.

Read Alikes:

A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L'Engle

A Voyage to Arcturus by David Lindsay
The Red Tree by Shaun Tan
Tales From Outer Suburbia by Shaun Tan

Lost and Found, Three by Shaun Tan

Habibi by Craig Thompson

American Born Chinese by Gene Luen Yang