The Arrival by Shaun TanThe Arrival (2007) is a graphic novel told with­out words. It is sim­ply a beau­ti­fully illus­trated novel whose word­less nar­ra­tive gives read­ers an insider’s view of what the immi­grant expe­ri­ence is like.

The story fol­lows one cen­tral char­ac­ter in a doc­u­men­tary like fashion, as he leaves his wife and young daugh­ter to make the long and ardu­ous jour­ney to a world that is com­pletely unfa­mil­iar. Coura­geous and brave doesn’t even begin to describe the sac­ri­fice that it takes to leave your fam­ily behind and to rebuild your life some­place new. This graphic novel may lack words but it speaks a uni­ver­sal lan­guage in  con­vey­ing the con­fu­sion, the frus­tra­tion and the sense of dis­place­ment of liv­ing in a new country.

Why did I pick this up? Well, this novel grabbed my atten­tion because it was apart of my Ama­zon rec­om­men­da­tion list. I read the syn­op­sis and was intrigued. Saw the Ama­zon five star glow­ing reviews and was curi­ous. Lucky for me, my library had a copy sit­ting on the shelf. This was a quick read but I did go back over some of the imagery of shad­ows and sym­bol­ism the author uses through­out the novel to con­vey the sense of urgency or fear that is used as the impe­tus of change. I can’t say that I under­stood all of it but the over­all mes­sage was clear enough. Of course it ends on a happy note for the fam­ily and starts the cycle over again with yet another fresh “arrival” off the boat need­ing help to nav­i­gate this bizarre new world.  If you enjoy illus­trated nov­els then you should pick this one at your local library. Ama­zon lists this title as cur­rently being unavailable. Remember, no nar­ra­tive, just pic­tures. My grade, B because of my high expec­ta­tions. This GN wasn’t what I thought it would be.

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