Return by Aaron Becker

If you have not read the stunning wordless picture book Journey, stop reading this blog post and do that right now before you even continue -- not because this review will spoil the trilogy for you, but because Journey is a book everyone should read and you need to get on that.

Return is the third and final book in the Journey trilogy and if you've read the other two books, it is just as stunning as you would expect it to be. It is a book that reminded me of everything I loved about Journey but this time the young protagonist understands the world in which she has drawn herself and is guiding someone into that world with her.

In Return, the young girl journeys back to the magical land into which she drew herself for the same reason she did before: a lack of attention from her family. Only this time, her father notices and follows her into this magical world. The man is awed by the wonder and curiosity of this place, but he can't quite take it all in because he is focused on finding his daughter. When he does finally catch up to her, she has no desire to return home with him, which leads them on a magical journey fraught with wonder and peril.

For lovers of Journey and Quest, Return is everything you want it to be: stunning illustrations, a compelling story full of imagination and fantasy, and characters that we find a way to care about despite the fact that they never speak.

I can't wait to share this book with my students in the fall. Thank you Aaron Becker for gracing the world with the gift of your stories and drawings.

GIVEAWAY! (Note: This giveaway has ended)

In anticipation of the release of Return, Candlewick Press is generously giving away to the readers of this blog a hardcover copy of both Journey and Quest to get caught up on the trilogy before the third books comes out.

Terms and conditions:
Must be 13 or older to enter and have a U.S. or Canadian mailing address
One winner will be selected to receive a hardcover copy of Journey and Quest.
Use the Rafflecopter widget to enter

Journey by Aaron Becker

When a young girl is desperate for some attention from her family but they appear to be too wrapped up in their own lives to notice her, she draws herself into an imaginary land and can get herself out of any predicament with just a few lines drawn from a magical red crayon.

Journey is an absolutely stunning, heart-skipping wordless picture book. It will make you gasp at its beauty and feats of imagination. It is probably my favorite wordless picture book of all time. Can someone say Caldecott? I just did. There's a perfect spot for the sticker on the left side - all that sky is just begging for an award sticker to be placed upon it.

What is so captivating about this picture book is the variety of influences you see in Becker's art, namely the Eastern influences, especially on the first full page spread where our protagonist enters the land of her imagination and you see paper lanterns strewn about the forest.

But truly, this book can be summed up by reading Aaron Becker's biography on the back flap:
 
Aaron Becker has made several memorable journeys in his lifetime. He's lived in rural Japan and East Africa, backpacked through Sweden and the South Pacific, and, most recently, ventured from San Fancisco Bay to Amherst, Massachusetts, the town he and his wife, daughter, and lazy cat now call home. To this day, his favorite destination remains his imagination, where he can often be found drawing secret doorways and magic lanterns.

LOVE that. Especially because, despite the fact that the journey in this book is by that of a young girl, it still felt very much like a personal journey for the illustrator. So reading his bio at the end didn't surprise me at all. This book really is his journey.

 Check out the book trailer:


Journey by Aaron Becker 
Published: August 6, 2013
Publisher: Candlewick
Pages: 40
Genre: Wordless Picture Book
Audience: EVERYONE!
Disclosure: Purchased Copy