It has the illustration beauty and magic of a wordless David Wiesner picture book and it is about creativity (and a crayon) like Harold. Lorna ( described it the best, I think: “a wonderful mashup of a David Wiesner book and Harold and the Purple Crayon.” I think this is perfect. Journey Review: This book is very hard to explain the magic of it. Can it also lead her home and to her heart’s desire? With supple line, luminous color, and nimble flights of fancy, author-illustrator Aaron Becker launches an ordinary child on an extraordinary journey toward her greatest and most exciting adventure of all. When she is captured by a sinister emperor, only an act of tremendous courage and kindness can set her free. Red marker in hand, she creates a boat, a balloon, and a flying carpet that carry her on a spectacular journey toward an uncertain destiny. Patience is amply rewarded, for both boy and reader.Journey Summary: Follow a girl on an elaborate flight of fancy in a wondrously illustrated, wordless picture book about self-determination - and unexpected friendship.Ī lonely girl draws a magic door on her bedroom wall and through it escapes into a world where wonder, adventure, and danger abound. Finally, the flight of a winged seed suggests another solution. After it lands out of reach on a roof, he tries everything he can think of (lasso, baseball, pogo stick, fireman’s hose - even a ladder!) to get the plane down. Using a palette almost as quiet as his wordless text, Pett’s witty if subdued picture book tells the story of a little boy who receives a toy airplane as a gift. THE BOY AND THE AIRPLANE Written and illustrated by Mark Pett 40 pp.

Though that marker will make you think of Crockett Johnson’s “Harold and the Purple Crayon,” Becker’s book has a beauty distinctly its own. Through it, she enters a lushly detailed imaginary world where, with the marker’s help, she floats and flies through a dramatic escapade and returns home with a friend.

In a tale told solely through pictures, a lonely little girl in a dull, sepia-toned city picks up a red marker and draws a door on her bedroom wall. Though Becker has plenty of experience as an artist for films, “Journey” is his first book, and it’s a masterwork. JOURNEY Written and illustrated by Aaron Becker 40 pp.

Aaron becker books