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Shaun Tan
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The Arrival Hardcover – Illustrated, October 1, 2007

by Shaun Tan (Author, Illustrator)
4.8 4.8 out of 5 stars 2,333 ratings
See all formats and editions
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A truly remarkable work of art that is already one of the most talked-about books of the season.

"Tan's lovingly laid out and masterfully rendered tale about the immigrant experience is a documentary magically told." -- Art Spiegelman, author of Maus"An absolute wonder." -- Marjane Satrapi, author of Persepolis"A magical river of strangers and their stories!" -- Craig Thompson, author of Blankets"A shockingly imaginative graphic novel that captures the sense of adventure and wonder that surrounds a new arrival on the shores of a shining new city. Wordless, but with perfect narrative flow, Tan gives us a story filled with cityscapes worthy of Winsor McCay." -- Jeff Smith, author of Bone"Shaun Tan's artwork creates a fantastical, hauntingly familiar atmosphere... Strange, moving, and beautiful." -- Jon J. Muth, Caldecott Medal-winning author of Zen Shorts"Bravo." -- Brian Selznick, Caldecott Medal-winning author of The Invention of Hugo Cabret"Magnificent." -- David Small, Caldecott Medalist
Previous page
  1. Reading age
    7 - 13 years, from customers
  2. Print length
    128 pages
  3. Language
    English
  4. Grade level
    7 - 6
  5. Dimensions
    9 x 0.5 x 12 inches
  6. Publisher
    Arthur A. Levine Books
  7. Publication date
    October 1, 2007
  8. ISBN-10
    0439895294
  9. ISBN-13
    978-0439895293
  10. See all details
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Editorial Reviews

From School Library Journal

Starred Review. Grade 7 Up—Tan captures the displacement and awe with which immigrants respond to their new surroundings in this wordless graphic novel. It depicts the journey of one man, threatened by dark shapes that cast shadows on his family's life, to a new country. The only writing is in an invented alphabet, which creates the sensation immigrants must feel when they encounter a strange new language and way of life. A wide variety of ethnicities is represented in Tan's hyper-realistic style, and the sense of warmth and caring for others, regardless of race, age, or background, is present on nearly every page. Young readers will be fascinated by the strange new world the artist creates, complete with floating elevators and unusual creatures, but may not realize the depth of meaning or understand what the man's journey symbolizes. More sophisticated readers, however, will grasp the sense of strangeness and find themselves participating in the man's experiences. They will linger over the details in the beautiful sepia pictures and will likely pick up the book to pore over it again and again.—Alana Abbott, James Blackstone Memorial Library, Branford, CT
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist

*Starred Review* Recipient of numerous awards and nominations in Australia, The Arrival proves a beautiful, compelling piece of art, in both content and form. Tan (The Lost Thing, 2004) has previously produced a small body of off-kilter, frequently haunting stories of children trapped in surreal industrial landscapes. Here, he has distilled his themes and aesthetic into a silent, fantastical masterpiece. A lone immigrant leaves his family and journeys to a new world, both bizarre and awesome, finding struggle and dehumanizing industry but also friendship and a new life. Tan infuses this simple, universal narrative with vibrant, resonating life through confident mastery of sequential art forms and conventions. Strong visual metaphors convey personal longing, political suppression, and totalitarian control; imaginative use of panel size and shape powerfully depicts sensations and ideas as diverse as interminable waiting, awe-inspiring majesty, and forlorn memories; delicate alterations in light and color saturate the pages with a sense of time and place. Soft brushstrokes and grand Art Decostyle architecture evoke a time long ago, but 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. Karp, Jesse

Product details

  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Arthur A. Levine Books; Illustrated edition (October 1, 2007)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 128 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0439895294
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0439895293
  • Reading age ‏ : ‎ 7 - 13 years, from customers
  • Grade level ‏ : ‎ 7 - 6
  • Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1.8 pounds
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 9 x 0.5 x 12 inches
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.8 4.8 out of 5 stars 2,333 ratings

About the author

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Shaun Tan

Shaun Tan

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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

4.8 out of 5 stars
4.8 out of 5
2,333 global ratings
A masterpiece
5 Stars
A masterpiece
Such an amazing wordless book.This masterpiece is a mix between great drawing and a magical storytelling, a fantastic description of how weird are things when you are a stranger or immigrant.
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Top reviews from the United States

Laura
5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent graphic novel, makes you ponder the stakes for immigrants
Reviewed in the United States on September 11, 2023
Verified Purchase
My husband checked this book out of our public library. He wanted the rest of the family to look at the book. Our 2 teens were busy with the start of school so I picked it up.

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.
3 people found this helpful
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Spots
5.0 out of 5 stars A beautiful story in a beautiful book
Reviewed in the United States on August 1, 2023
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Shaun Tan recreates an immigrant experience through his remarkable and gorgeous drawings of strange and wonderful places and creatures. What is it like to flee danger only to arrive in a new country where you don't understand the language, but have to find familiar food, get a job, and find a place to live? One step at a time, the new immigrant makes discoveries in a strange and foreign land, helped by friendly, caring strangers, who were once arrivals themselves. Very life- and humanity-affirming, warm and generous. Can't recommend it enough for people of all ages.
One person found this helpful
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David Crumm
5.0 out of 5 stars Amazingly, Shaun Tan Shows Us Our Own World Through a Newcomer's Eyes
Reviewed in the United States on February 5, 2008
Verified Purchase
"The Arrival" is a genre-connecting hardback picture book that took Shaun Tan four years to create based on narratives of immigrants coming to the U.S., combined with visual references he studied from antique post cards, historical photographs and even paintings and etchings by earlier artists.
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.
14 people found this helpful
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Dennis the Menace
5.0 out of 5 stars This Work is a Revelation
Reviewed in the United States on March 17, 2019
Verified Purchase
Beautiful, dreamy, and soulful, this book is a revelation.

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.
19 people found this helpful
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Top reviews from other countries

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Saranga
5.0 out of 5 stars Visuals damn🔥
Reviewed in India on December 23, 2023
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Just awesome
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Saranga
5.0 out of 5 stars Visuals damn🔥
Reviewed in India on December 23, 2023
Just awesome
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francesca d.
5.0 out of 5 stars Capolavoro!
Reviewed in Italy on July 10, 2023
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Un libro che parla di emigrazione usando il disegno. Non ci sono i classici baloon per far parlare i personaggi disegnati, ma è una lettura affascinante, commovente, che ti aggancia. SPLENDIDO! Io ho comprato una versione straniera, giattanto non ci sono parole. Da avere. Specifico che non sono una esperta di fumetti, leggo ogni tanto qualcosa a istinto o su consiglio di persone più esperte. Libro eccezionale. Piaciuto molto. Finale che allegerisce il cuore. Un capolavoro di narrazione per figure.
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carmen franco morales
5.0 out of 5 stars Maravilloso
Reviewed in Spain on March 30, 2023
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No hacen falta las palabras para sumergirte en el corazón de este hombre.
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Corinne Garau
5.0 out of 5 stars Au pays de l'IMAG(E)inaire...
Reviewed in France on January 31, 2023
Verified Purchase
L'exile commence à l'arrivée, mais aussi au départ.
Voyage en image dans cet air qu'est l'exil,
où chaque moment est impressionnant,
où chaque page nous émerveille.
Les dessins sont magnifiques!
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Liara
5.0 out of 5 stars Experience
Reviewed in the Netherlands on May 30, 2022
Verified Purchase
It was more a experience than a book. There are no words but somehow you can read the thoughts and feelings. A great book about immigrating.
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