The Arrival written and illustrated by Shaun Tan was an awesome speechless children's novel. When i first looked at the cover i did not know what to expect from this book, but when i started to read through the illustrations i noticed it was about the struggles of a man departing his family to make a better life for himself and his family as well.
My favorite thing about this novel was that it had no text. At first, i have to say, i was definitely confused if i was reading the right thing just because there was no text, but then i realized not every book has to have text. I think the choice of not having any text makes it more creative for the reader to explore their thoughts and ideas of what the author is trying to portray through the story. It allows the reader to grasp the story in their own way/out look. My experience was that i had to read it once one day and then the next day i would read it, and so on and so forth. I had to read it so many times to try and figure out one way that i wanted the story to be. After i would collect my ideas, thinking maybe this is a dream of his, just because of all the little monsters running around, i didn't know if he was making up the monsters to be his "imaginary friends" or what. But after reading this a couple times, i started to see that it was about how crazy of a world it could be for an immigrant coming or going to a new place to explore. ( i know how crazy of a world it could be for such an immigrant due to the fact that i have friends from Africa now, and how they did not know a lot about things like, what is a squirt gun?
I really just love how me being the reader, i can enjoy myself entering a new strange world that makes me participate into the main characters emotion of loneliness. And how could i forget, the detailed illustrations and emotion through the pictures just blew my mind away as an illustrator.
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