Journey

A girl is bored and lonely in a quiet house, with no one to play with. Then she takes a red marker and sketches a door on her bedroom wall. When she steps through it, she finds herself in a lush, imaginary land that has no words to explain it, only pictures to explore.

Everything she needs she draws with the same marker: a boat to cross the water, a balloon to lift her into the sky, and a flying carpet to carry her onward. Each page opens onto a grander landscape than the last, full of wonder and also real peril. Her path is uncertain, and she has no idea where it will end.

Danger arrives when a sinister emperor captures her. Escaping will take a brave and generous act, and the story asks whether that same act might also bring her home and give her the thing she has wanted most all along.

Aaron Becker tells the whole tale without a single word, relying on fine linework and glowing color to carry the feeling and the plot. It is a picture book about resourcefulness, imagination and an unexpected friendship, and it was named a Caldecott Honor Book in 2014.