We went to Barnes and Noble yesterday in an ultimately unsuccessful quest to buy my son a dictionary. (It's almost as if all the parents in the area recently had cause to buy the same item at once!) As we always do, we browsed the picture books in case anything caught our eye, and this did. Quest, by Aaron Becker, the sequel to Journey.
Journey is a wordless picture book about a girl with a magic crayon that leads her on an adventure through a magical world. Most of the pictures are large detailed landscapes, letting your eye do the exploring. Thanks to the wordless part, both my children (five and three) love to 'read' it, and I've enjoyed talking through the story with them as well, because the artwork is ruddy gorgeous. Below is the book trailer to give you an idea.
When I recognised the characters from Journey on the cover of Quest, I immediately pulled it off the shelf and showed it to the kids. Their eyes went huge, and they squeaked: "Journey!" I may have squeaked as well.
At that point, buying it was a foregone conclusion, and after some argument, we agreed that nobody should have it in the car on the way home; we would all read it together.
And that was exactly what we did, page by page, guessing what it was the children were drawing next, and finding out the details of the story together. Once we finished, we immediately re-read.
My husband and I are geeks, and there are plenty of times that we've
been mutually excited over something. But this is the first time I've
been able to really geek out with the kids--for all three of us to be
genuine fans of a fantasy world, and it warmed my nerdy little heart.
The good news is that we should get the chance to do this again. Apparently, Journey and Quest are destined to be a trilogy. I can't wait. (And, so he tells me, neither can my son.)
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