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Journey is a children's book by author and illustrator Aaron Becker. The book was published in 2013 by Candlewick Press. It was selected as an Caldecott Honor Book in 2014. It is the first book of the Journey trilogy series by Becker. Becker, in the past, has worked for major film studios such as Lucasfilm, Disney, and Pixar.

Description
The picture book, illustrated by Becker, is completely wordless. The only words in the book that pertains to the story is a brief summarization of the story being told by the illustrations in the beginning of the book.

Plot
The book begins with an unnamed little girl sitting on the front steps of her home. She appears to be very bored and lonely. The only thing accompanying her is a red scooter. She goes inside her house and tries to interact with the her family but no one seems to give her any attention. She then goes to her room and sits quietly on her bed. In her room she finds a red marker and with it, she proceeds to draw a magic door on her bedroom wall. She walked through the door and entered a wonderful new world. With her red marker, she began her adventurous journey through this new found world. However, It was not all fun and games in the little girls' travels. She found herself in a few predicaments. After walking through the beautiful forest, she arrived at a river with no way to get across it. She uses her magic red marker to draw up a little red boat. She cruised on the river with her little red boat through the forest and into a gorgeously exotic medieval city. She waves at everyone she encounters with as she passes through the new found city. She eventually encounters end of the river and a waterfall. She falls the ledge but saves herself by abandoning the boat and drawing up an air ballon with her magic red marker in mid-air. As she's flying in the clouds, she comes across a flying ship and a sinister emperor capturing a purple bird flying in the sky. The little girl sneaks onto the ship in an attempt to save the caged bird. She saves the bird, opens the cage door and the bird flies away safely. Unfortunately, she gets captured by the ships guards and gets put in a cage of her own. The emperor took away her marker and tossed it out of the ship. The little girls fortunes takes an upswing as the purple bird comes back with the little red marker to help her escape. She draws up red magic carpet to fly out of the cage and away from the ship. She follows the bird past the medieval city and all the way to a magic door that leads back into the real world. She meets the owner of the purple bird, a little boy who owns a magic purple marker of his own. The final illustrations show the kids using their magic markers to make a two-seater bicycle and ride away.

Critical Reception
The critical reception for Journey have been tremendously positive. The New York Times says "Though Becker has plenty of experience as an artist for films, “Journey” is his first book, and it’s a masterwork". Publishers Weekly describes the illustrations as "Wonder mixes with longing as the myriad possibilities offered by Becker’s stunning settings dwarf what actually happens in the story. Readers will be both dazzled and spurred on imagined travels of their own". Seira Wilson of Amazon.com Review says "Journey is an incredible work of storytelling through art that will appeal to readers of all ages".