$19.99
ISBN: 9780439895293
Availability: On Our Shelves Now
Published: Arthur A. Levine Books - October 1st, 2007
A magnificient book! Here is the write up I did for the local newspaper holiday gift guide.
Ellis Island is at once a firm piece of history and a beguiling metaphor. The sense of passage, the struggle for entry, the strangeness and immersion, the aspirations and complex realities which mark Ellis Island, make for both compelling history and a dramatic representation of many aspects of the human experience.
It is perhaps fitting, given all the holiday bustle, not to mention the struggle among book titles to be a popular choice during the holiday season, that a story whose tale is rooted in the immigration experience, by a relatively unknown Australian author, should be the finest gift book of the year. The Arrival, by Shaun Tan, is a story told entirely through sequential pictures. Several of the drawings are based upon turn of the century historical photographs, rooting the book in the Ellis Island period. The brilliance and the wonder of the book, apart from the truly exquisite drawings, is the element of the fantastic which Tan inserts. The marvel of The Arrival is that its readers are placed inside the story. We too cannot read the signs and billboards written in a strange language. The odd animals and unknown machines are, at first, as bewildering to us as they are to the immigrants. As the story progresses, we move along with it, gaining at first a foothold, and then a steadily building comprehension of the world through which we are traveling.
The Arrival is a truly exceptional book. To read it is to enjoy a unique, wondrous, and satisfying experience. Giving it as a gift this holiday season isn’t a bad idea either.