Journey by Aaron Becker

Journey by Aaron Becker, Candlewick Press, 2013

photo from parnassusbooks.net

The Review…

One small girl. One red crayon. One giant adventure. A magic door drawn on her bedroom wall leads this lonely girl to a world of castles, moats, flying machines and captured birds. With her magic red crayon, she draws all she needs to waterfalls, soldiers and, most importantly, boredom. With his beautiful illustrations, Becker uses splashes of bold red, purple and gold to lead the eye through every page turn. This book is bold, daring, and most excitingly, wordless. Journey is adventure, magic, imagination recommended for ages 2-6.

The Opinion…

I love this book! Love.

Friends. Wordless picture books, when done right, are amazing. Just look at Flotsam by David Wiesner or A Ball for Daisy by Chris Raschka or, one of my favorites, Shadow by Suzy Lee. Imma just go ahead and add Journey to that list too.

Fantastic.

Also, it reminded me a Harold and the Purple Crayon by Crocket Johnson. And I love Harold and the Purple Crayon. Its such a classic, that it would be really hard to take Johnson’s concept and insert it into a new story. You’d have to do it very carefully. And that’s just what Aaron Becker has done. Its just enough Harold to make you love it and you’re not appalled like when Vanilla Ice ripped off Queen and Bowie and claimed it was totally original. You actually really like it like the first time you heard Jason Derulo’s “Whatcha Say” and you weren’t even mad because you love Imogen Heap so much… or was that just me?