The Arrival

by Shaun Tan

Summary: This is an immigration story that is told entirely in pictures. That's right--this book has no words. The pictures at first invoke a feeling of a historical time period, but the reader soon notices the strange creatures running around that look nothing like anything from our world. The main character is befriended by a dog-sized alien creature, who helps him navigate this strange new world. This man has left his family to find work here, and the reader experiences his joys and his failures all depicted through beautiful artwork.

My thoughts: The Arrival took me much longer to "read" than I thought it would. I assumed I would flip through each page quickly. After all, it's just pictures. The pictures are so rich and complex, however, that you want to linger on every page. A beautiful and original story, that you almost sort of write yourself!