Title: The Arrival
Author: Shaun Tan
About the Author: He is an Australian picture book author and illustrator. He has won international and national awards. He has no formal training in illustration. As a teenager he drew a lot, mostly for science fiction and horror magazines.
Age Levels: Young Adult
Synopsis: In a heartbreaking parting, a man gives his wife and daughter a last kiss and boards a steamship to cross the ocean. He's embarking on the most painful yet important journey of his life - he's leaving home to build a better future for his family. Shaun Tan evokes universal aspects of an immigrant's experience through a singular work of the imagination. He does so using brilliantly clear and mesmerizing images. Because the main character can't communicate in words, the book forgoes them too. But while the reader experiences the main character's isolation, he also shares his ultimate joy. Tan uses visual metaphors in place of words.
Theme(s): immigration, isolation, struggle, adventure, new experiences, tolerance, acceptance, race, ethnicity
How it can be used in the elementary classroom: This book can be used in the classroom when studying immigration. The book portrays through illustration how a new place may look to someone who comes from another country. It shows how places, things, food, reading, language, etc. is very different from someone’s home country. The students will be able to put themselves in an immigrant’s shoes. It shows the entire process of entering a new country. The only writing in the book is an invented alphabet, which would make the reader feel like an outsider to the world and also makes the reader feel confused like an immigrant must feel when they are being introduced to a new language. Students can imagine how it felt for immigrants to come to a new country. The author really portrays the disorientation that immigrants must feel towards their new surroundings. Some questions to ask students might be; What are some similarities and differences between the image from The Arrival and the photograph of the Great Hall in Ellis Island? What has Tan changed to make us feel like outsiders?
Video of book: http://makingvisualnarratives.com/news-and-links/using-shaun-tans-book-the-arrival-in-the-classroom
Barnes and Noble
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