Books

The Arrival is a 128 page book of illustrations without words, a silent graphic novel. Through a series of connecting images, it tells the story of a migrant leaving his home, crossing an ocean to a strange new city and eventually learning how to live there. The migrant is unable to understand such things as the language, transportation, food and housing of this foreign place and therefore neither should the reader, hence the absence of words.The artwork embraces the texture of old sepia photographs that typically documented social life during the early nineteenth century. The entire work of art simultaneously appears as a strange photo album.Shaun Tan is an award winning author and illustrator, well-known for The Lost Thing which was a CBCA Honour Book in 2002 and The Red Tree, which was also a CBCA Honour Book in 2002.