World Book Day provides us with a fantastic opportunity to bring the whole school together around a common theme.  The challenge is to find a high-quality book that is likely to engage children of all ages in our school – from Nursery to Year 6 – and which also provides opportunities for a wide range of cross-curricular activities. 

Aaron Becker’s wonderful wordless picture book, Journey, provided just such an opportunity this year, providing multiple ‘hooks’ that teachers used to devise engaging, enriching activities for the children they teach and stimulating imaginative responses from the children.

Children in different year groups engaged with the book in very different ways, from creating computer games based on the story, through illustrative artwork and mosaic, to team challenges, drama activities, story-telling and story-writing.  Even Maths in Reception had a transport theme.  It’s been wonderful to see the diverse ways in which BPS teachers used this book on World Book Day – and even more wonderful to see the enthusiasm, imagination and creativity that the children exhibited.

Journey is the first book in a trilogy of wordless picture books by Aaron Becker.  The other books in the series are Quest and Return.