The Arrival

It's gorgeous. It's more of a graphic novel than a children's book due to the length. Older children would probably appreciate it more than younger ones. It's wordless, though, so you can't really read it to your kids. It has beautiful pencil drawings. The story is basically a man leaving his home country, leaving his daughter and wife behind, to go to a new land. He is escaping something, but it's never clear quite what.

Everything takes place in a fantastical world. The new land is full of possibility and beauty. The wordless drawings capture the potential and amazement of moving to a new land, but also the loneliness, isolation, homesickness and difficulty communicating with people. As he goes through the story, he meets many other immigrants who have been there longer and show him the ropes. At the end, his family joins him and it comes full circle as his young daughter shows a new immigrant how to get somewhere on her map. It's very touching and beautiful.