Journey by Aaron Becker (review)

In this wordless picture book, a restless young girl draws a door on her bedroom wall with her special red marker, then opens the door and steps through it into a strange and fantastical land. Her literally magic marker allows her to create a boat (for travel on canal and aqueduct) and then a hot air balloon; floating through the clouds, she sees a beautiful purple bird taken captive by people on another airship. She manages to board the ship and free the bird, but she's taken captive herself and loses her marker in the process. The grateful bird retrieves it for her, and she flees on a newly drawn flying carpet, following the bird back to earth and through a strange purple door—which leads to the very city she left and a boy wielding his own powerful, purple marker. Occupying an intriguing middle ground between Crockett Johnson's Harold and the Purple Crayon and David Macaulay's fictionalized feats of urban engineering, Becker's world is fully realized in alluring land- and skyscapes. The city the girl paddles to is an intricate confection of gold domes and vertiginous turrets, with a solidly conceived waterway (complete with sluices and locks) flowing through its elegant center, while the bird-capturing airship is a steampunk froth of gears and spines and wheels; the occasional cutaway adds to the appeal. The line and watercolor style has a soft dreaminess to it, and the distant perspectives and controlled palette (shaded earth tones save for the girl's red and the bird's purple) enhance the fantasy flavor. Audiences may be more interested in the worldbuilding than the plot, but they'll pick up on the concept and enjoy the fantastical voyage.