Journey (Aaron Becker's Wordless Trilogy)

This is a wordless picture book about a girl who draws a magic door and goes into another world of wonder and adventure. It teaches determination and kindness can get you anywhere. It also allows children to be creative because they have to create a story themselves to go along with the

Show More

illustrations. I would read this to all ages.

Show Less

The artwork is absolutely beautiful! I love a book that can tell such a distinct, definite story without any words, and the way the artist uses color very much helps tell this tale. I especially like the surprising, happy ending!

A fantastic wordless picture book that shows a child's imagination, and journeys into far out worlds, and the power of a person's will to make a world what she or he wants it to be. The little red boat goes through a portaland then to various worlds. Mesmerizing watercolors and a great story line.

A beautiful wordless tale. I love how the red pops against the rest of the colors.

Wonderful wordless picture book. with a slight nod towards Harold and his Purple Crayon, this young protagonist has a red pencil with which she draws a door into a magical world and eventually, she brings the magic back with her whens she returns. Amazing artwork, strong geometrics. Caldecott short

Show More

list.

Show Less

This book did not contain any text, which was wonderful because it left an abundance of time to be devoted to looking at the artwork, something that can be missed during read-aloud, even when the illustrations are spectacular. I think looking at a book without words is a great way to encourage

Show More

discussion between viewers and lead to more detailed observations. This sort of practice will be useful when students are learning to read because they often must rely on the illustrations to understand or guess at the text. Journey in particular is excellent because it is filled with imagination and shows young children a literal world, Asia, which they may not have seen yet.

Show Less

This Caldecott winner took me beyond anything my imagination could see. The illustrations are remarkable. This encompasses the imagination of a child. The girl feels ignored by who I am assuming are her parents so she takes a red crayon to draw a door into her own little world. In her world she

Show More

visits many different lands, experiences many things, and makes friends. I have said this many times but wordless books are all about interpretation and therefor fitting for any age. Journey went above my expectations. I would recommend for anyone!

Show Less

I had been drawn to the stunning illustrations of Journey before this class even started when I processed this book for one of my schools, so I was pleased to finally have an opportunity to read it. The author tells a vivid story through pictures of a lonely girl who sets out on a magical adventure

Show More

in similar style to Harold and the Purple Crayon with the help of a doorway she draws on the wall.

Show Less

I love that this book is all about reading the illustrations! This could be a fun book to project and discuss with your class. I would say it would be great for K-5 - although the discussion would look much different at each level.

Journey is a wordless story about a girl whose family is too busy to hang out with her, but she ends up going on an adventure when she finds a magic crayon, and draws a magic door to another realm. There, she draws herself a boat and floats to a city with castle like structures, and Italian

Show More

inspired canals. Before going over a waterfall, she draws herself a hot air balloon, and floats onto a flying ship where she rescues and releases a purple caged bird. However she is captured by the men on the ship, and they throw her crayon overboard and put her in a cage. But the purple bird retrieves her crayon and the girl draws a flying magic carpet. The girl and the purple bird fly far away until they come to a purple door in a tree, and on the other side is a boy with a purple crayon in the city where the girl lives. Together they draw a bicycle made for two with the purple bird trailing behind.

Show Less

This book would pair well with "Harold and the Purple Crayon" and "The Red Book." A bored child takes her red crayon on a magical adventure, in which she bravely performs a rescue, leading to a friendship with a like-minded boy in her normal reality. A great wordless book, full of detail,

Show More

adventure, and some good role-modeling for character development.

Show Less

This book about a lonely child using her imagination to find adventure will capture the attention of any child who "reads" it. With the help of a crayon, the girl makes her own doors, boats, carpets, etc., to journey through exotic lands. What I love most is how easily children can use their own

Show More

imaginations to build the backstory. Surely this book will win the Caldecott this year.

Show Less

The muted tone of the real world of the little girl enhances the multicolored and beautiful world that she creates with her red crayon. The illustration is key in portraying this. No wonder it is a Caldecott winner. kids will enjoy the escape and magic created with an ordinary object like a crayon.

Wordless picture book that is beautifully illustrated. Really captivates the reader even without words. Gives appreciation to the illustrations.

One of the most amazing picture books of 2013. Take the magic of Harold and the Purple Crayon and combine it with the gorgeously rendered imaginings of Aaron Becker, and you've got a sheer masterpiece.

When a little girl, seeking attention from her parents and sister but finding they are too busy,

Show More

discovers a red crayon, she wastes no time and draws herself a door. How very smart of her: the door is indeed a portal, leading to magical lands singing of royal and steampunk fantasies.

Indeed, the story ends full circle - literally and figuratively - and what we want most is to start at the beginning again, soaking up this magical, mysterious tale.

Completely wordless, utterly compelling, simply perfect.

Calling on the Caldecott Committee! I think Journey will give Weisner's outstanding Mr.Wuffles a run for it's money in the wordless category.

Show Less

A beautful wordless story about a lonely girl who embarks on a journey of her own imagination and returns to find her world at home changed. The illustration tells the story as the girl's home life is mostly grey and brown colors and the imaginary world she enters becomes brighter and brighter. A

Show More

lovely book that explores the power of the imagination.

Show Less

Aaron Becker is primarily known for his work on films like The Polar Express, and you can see the influence of his cinematic background in this story of a flight of fancy taken by a lonely girl. This book brings to mind not only Maurice Sendak and Brian Selznick, but also Steven Spielberg and

Show More

Robert Zemeckis. The author/illustrator uses pen-and-ink drawings painted over with watercolors that vary from the sepia of the little girl’s lonely and boring home life to the richer colors of her imagined adventures through a magic door she colors onto her bedroom wall.

Once outside her room, the little girl enters a spectacular kingdom and encounters a number of challenges which require her to draw her way to safety. She also frees a captured bird, following it back into her own world, where she finally meets a friend.

The landscapes are wondrous: intricately drawn, somewhat medieval, somewhat steampunk, and somewhat evocative of the Madeline books by Ludwig Bemelmans. But I think that’s the point of a book like this: not only does its wordlessness allow you to fill in the story with your imagination, but the breadth and depth of the illustrations do as well.

Discussion: Some of my favorite books are wordless. They allow children to supply the dialogue through their imaginations, forcing them to think about what is being depicted and what it might mean, allowing for endless creative interpretations. The pictures in this book are not as simple to analyze as, for example, the wordless books by Tommi dePaola (which are in fact meant for much younger children), so it asks readers to concentrate and ponder. Younger readers can still enjoy this book on a purely visual level at the very least, and those not as adept at reading words will discover just how much they can glean from clues besides letters.

Evaluation: This is definitely a book for all ages to explore together.

Awards

1. Caldecott Honor Book
2. 2013 Goodreads Choice Awards
3. Amazon's Best Children's Books of 2013
4. Amazon's Best Children's Books of 2013
5. Goodreads Choice Award
6. 2013 New York Times Best Illustrated
7. Junior Library Guild Selection

Show Less

A simple picture book about how complex children's imaginations are. Each epic page stared from a simple sketch on the previous page: a triangle turned into a boat which floated down a river then into a moat and through a castle; then the chase for a majestic bird began, only to find out that the

Show More

bird was created by a second child; the two become friends, draw a bike together and ride of with the majestic bird.

Show Less

A young girl, with a distracted family, draws a door on her wall and escapes into a strange new world. She gets captured by an evil emperor and has to use her wits to escape.

What creates the boundaries of our imagination? It would seem, by definition, that they are boundless. It could be that for children, they truly are! This wonderful children's book will appeal mostly to those children (of all ages) who still have access to theirs.

Besides the storyline, the

Show More

illustrations are fantabulous!

Show Less

Becker's highly imaginative watercolor and ink illustrations manifest into an exciting and beautiful journey for a young lonely girl. She is bored, lonely, and appears to be longing for an adventure while sitting in her dark and tidy room. Thank goodness she has a magic piece of red chalk that will

Show More

open doors to faraway lands. The little girl uses the chalk to draw all kinds of useful getaway objects as she approaches unexpected obstacles. Becker clerverly pairs the little girl with a bright red scooter in the beginning of the book facing a young boy with a purple piece of chalk. These to illustrations foreshadow the rest of the story. This is definitely a book that can be viewed numerous times by picture book lovers of al ages.

Show Less

Any good picture book will be chalked full of illustrations that could tell a story all on their own, but it’s rare to find a book without words at all. However, Journey needs no words; Becker’s vivid illustrations of a lonely girl’s adventures are enough to tell the fantastical story. With

Show More

her red marker, the little girl draws herself doors, boats and hot air balloons in order to travel through a world of her own imagination.

Quite clearly, this book is not meant to help children with their reading skills. However, this story is a fantastic opportunity for parents to encourage their readers to tell the story with their own words, and expand their imagination even more than what Becker’s illustrations provide them with. He also uses colors to aid in telling the story; at the beginning, the only bright colors highlighted amongst the muted greys is red, like the marker the little girl uses. However, in her imagination, everything is bright and colorful. Although it’s always the goal to aid children in their reading skills, sometimes an exercise in imagination is just as important. Highly recommended. Grades pre-K to 1.

Show Less

Love this book! A wonderfully creative adventure told through amazing illustrations. This would be great to share with children of all ages and would bring about a strong discussion on imagination. It could also be used to teach predicting, imagination in writing, or come up with the dialogue or

Show More

words for the story.

Show Less

Reminiscent of Harold and The Purple Crayon, but at a completely different level, this book beautifully tells the story of a young, bored girl who decides to use her red crayon to open up the door to an imaginative new world. Her journey takes her down a river, to a castle and finally into the sky.

Show More

She rescues a beautiful purple bird who in return rescues her red crayon so that she can continue her journey. In the end, the bird brings her to its creator, a boy with a purple crayon. The two draw a bicycle, a red wheel and a purple and ride off together, no longer bored, no longer lonely.

Show Less