"The Arrival"

"The Arrival" By Shaun Tan, Arthur A. Levine Books, 2007, Hardcover, 128 pages, $19.99

Review by osette Royale

A whimsical retelling of an immigrant’s story, Tan’s book supplants words with images. Through these, we watch the journey of a man leaving his wife and daughter to travel, first by rail, then by sea, to a foreign country. Crowded on a dock with hundreds of others, who all look as if they hail from different lands, he finds his way to a rooming house. That’s not so easy, since the country’s written language — a swirling blend of faux Cyrillic and Greek —is indecipherable. But all around, there are tiny creatures from some mystical world, that befriend the citizens, and his, a pale frog/cat hybrid, leads him through the maze of city streets, where he encounters other immigrants with perilous tales of border crossings. Earning the money to bring his family to this land of magical opportunity, his daughter and wife arrive in a mailbox held aloft by a giant floating balloon. Remembering their own initial confusion when they arrived, they each share the knowledge they’ve gained of this place with other newcomers who’ve left all they’ve known for a better life.

Supposedly, this book is meant for children. But much like the Grinch, whose heart grows three sizes over his encounter with Cindy Loo Who, only the meanest ones wouldn’t be swayed by Tan’s beautifully realized, sweet tale that speaks multitudes without using one word.