The Arrival is a wordless graphic novel written by Shaun Tan and published by Hodder Children's Books in 2006.

[2] Shaun Tan has said he wanted his book to build a kind of empathy in readers: "In Australia, people don't stop to imagine what it's like for some of these refugees.

I don't expect the book to change anybody's opinion about things, but if it at least makes them pause to think, I'll feel as if I've succeeded in something.

[4] Gene Yang has noted the resemblance between the illustrations and aged photos, and the presence of realistic-looking humans in abstract and bizarre environments that combine futuristic and old-fashioned aesthetics.

When I started, I was drawing everything out of my head by hand, and I was finding that there were accumulating continuity problems—just little things that you notice subconsciously, like the length of a sleeve, how a lapel falls, where the rim of a hat is.