Thankfully, everything works out for the best, and after being given their own crowns by the king himself, our heroes are left back in the park where they started, setting the stage for…. At this point we’ve seen so many fun examples of what the colors can create that it’s very disconcerting to think of them in the hands of an enemy.

As the children seek to fulfill their mission, it becomes clear that the soldiers are also in search of the colors. It’s amazing what Becker can convey through images the sense of peril in this story is heightened when, just as the king has finished his explanation, he is captured by soldiers and taken away, leaving his orange chalk behind. The king gives the friends a map, and explains that their mission is to retrieve six colors from various places in the magical world. Quest picks up right where Journey left off caught in the rain, the boy and girl are surprised by a man dressed as a king who steps through a door in the park they are visiting. This story ends with them cycling off together, in search of further adventures. Journey ends with the beginning of a friendship a vivid purple bird in the magical world leads the girl back to its creator, a boy with his own piece of chalk. (It’s very Harold and the Purple Crayon–like.) In moments of crisis on the girl’s adventure, the chalk becomes a tool to create what she needs a boat, a hot air balloon, a flying carpet. Lo and behold, the door opens, and she steps into another world. She picks it up and draws a door on her wall.

Bored at home and searching for someone to play with, a girl notices a bright red piece of chalk on her bedroom floor. The first book, Journey, begins with the wise implementation of an important tool of the imagination color. Becker has painted a story that is both beautiful to look at and beautiful to experience. Magical kingdoms, underwater exploring, flights from danger, trickery, deceit, broken and restored relationships: it’s all here. A huge adventure unfolds over the course of these three stories, on the scale of some epic, 300-page novels you might be familiar with. I think these types of books are so much fun to read in addition to featuring beautiful art, they present such an opportunity for creativity for the reader as well, interpreting what the characters might be saying or choosing words to add to the images. I first discovered Journey back in early 2014 when I wrote a post about wordless picture books since then, the trilogy has been completed with Quest (2014) and Return (2016). Thankfully, Aaron Becker’s beautiful wordless Journey trilogy has busted that trend. It’s not very often that you hear of a trilogy of picture books I frequently see popular series for early readers or for older kids, but picture books seldom seem to get the opportunity to tell a story longer than thirty-two pages.

Journey wordless book