A man gives his wife and daughter a last kiss and boards a steamship to cross the ocean. He’s embarking on the most painful yet important journey of his life – he’s leaving home to build a better future for his family. Shaun Tan evokes universal aspects of an immigrant’s experience through a singular work of the imagination. He does so using brilliantly clear and mesmerizing images. Because the main character can’t communicate in words, the book forgoes them too. But while the reader experiences the main character’s isolation, he also shares his ultimate joy.
This book is a wordless picturebook.
On October 20, 2010 at 7:00 P.M., Rosemary Wells, illustrator and author of the preschool series Max and Ruby, will be at Worlds of Words physical location on the 4th floor of the College of Education at the University of Arizona.
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[...] The Arrival (2006), by Shaun Tan, combines the main character’s inability to speak in the foreign tongue of his new homeland with a wordless picture book. Following the magnificent pictures, the reader is able to personally experience the main character’s feelings of isolation, while also sharing in his eventual joy. [...]