Tuesday, October 19, 2010

The Arrival by Shaun Tan

Genre: Graphic Novel

Honors: New South Wales Premier's Literary Awards, Community Relations Commission Award

Review: In this superb, wordless, graphic novel the reader is drawn into the world of an immigrant arriving in a foreign land.  A man sadly leaves his family and must take a long journey to arrive in a new land where he does not speak the language and has no home or job.  Through beautiful and detailed drawings the reader follows the immigrant as he struggles to understand his new land and adjusts to a new lifestyle.  Joyfully, his family arrives to join him and the pure happiness is expertly drawn and portrayed through a beautiful smile on his daughter's face.  The Arrival is an amazing story and is done to perfection with the stunning illustrations featured throughout. 

Opinion: The images in this novel are powerful and expressive, I found myself looking at them for long periods of time.  The story is so emotional and I am so impressed that Tan has the ability to evoke such emotion without a single word.  

Ideas: Have this book available in EL classes.  Students will be able to understand this story no matter what their native language. 

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