It’s just a bunch of little things that add up to being complicated. Journey spreadīecker, an American artist who formerly worked in the film industry, wanted his book to be highly detailed, but he explains that: ‘Nothing is complicated. Be prepared to pore over these illustrations for hours. Great care is taken over tiny details, such as those of the costumes, including the guards’ uniforms, knights’ helmets and ladies’ fringed umbrellas. There is an element of the steampunk aesthetic, especially in the myriad locks, bridges, ships, hot air balloons and strange Jules Verne-like flying machines that populate this world, as well as in the many smaller mechanical devices that involve pulleys, wheels, cogs, and levers. On his website, Becker says he was inspired by a castle in France, a neighbourhood in Washington DC and a village in Germany, but also contained within the images are Italianate domes and Venetian gondolas Roman viaducts and Middle Eastern walled cities Far Eastern curved roofs and medieval turreted towers. In Journey, Aaron Becker has created a wonderfully complex fantasy world that draws on a range of geographical and cultural references. The portal is a literary device that is often used to link real and imagined worlds, while the magic pencil enables an illustrator to demonstrate visually their ability to adapt and control an invented space using their own interventions. For the latter, think Harold and the Purple Crayon (1955) by Crockett Johnson, as well as Magpie Magic (1999) by April Wilson and Chalk (2010) by Bill Thomson – two titles which, like this book, are wordless picturebooks. For the former, think Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland (1865), Lewis’s The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (1950) and Pullman’s Northern Lights (1995). Journey spreadīoth the idea of a portal into another world and the concept of a ‘magic pencil’, where a drawn object becomes ‘real’, are familiar ones in children’s literature. Eventually the girl rescues an exotic purple bird that guides her through another small door, which leads her back into her home city. As she makes her escape difficulties beset her, but she cleverly draws a solution to overcome each challenge. Gradually she drifts into the watery highway of a vast and complex castle, peopled with fierce guards.
So, using her red crayon, the girl draws herself a boat and climbs in. Journey – Wordless Books Wordless Books Journey (2013)Ī bored and lonely child picks up a red colouring stick and draws a small door on her bedroom wall – then walks through it into a luminous forest lit with blue Chinese lanterns, golden strings of fairy lights and numerous fireflies.
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