Gr. 9-12. Engaging characters, fantastic setting, and engrossing story. Tan achieves all of this and more without using a single word in The Arrival.
This is an immigrant’s tale, so common in America. A man leaves his family to move to a new land with new opportunities. The man has to adjust to this new land, find a job, and earn enough to bring his family over. Along the way he meets others with similar stories. Seeing the present and the past of these characters illustrates why so many people upend their lives and separate from their families to try to build a new life in America.
This is a graphic novel in its purest form. Using no words, every page is tailored to reveal a new emotion, another challenge, and the next step in the story. Tan creates a bizarre and elaborate metropolis of impressive buildings and transit, alien writing, expressive animals, and peculiar fruits and vegetables to represent America, giving the reader the same unfamiliarity and awe as the protagonist. As the man meets other immigrants, we see their stories of intellectual restriction and forced labor, genocide, and the ravages of war. Each story’s artwork in uniquely told just as each immigrant is unique, even amongst the great throngs of a massive city. Eloquently sequenced frames show time elapsing. For example, a two-page spread of 24 frames presents a year passing with a single plant blooming, growing, fading, and dying. At no point in the story does Tan’s artwork falter, making each page a new, dramatic, and compelling presentation.
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