The Journey is a beautiful, heartbreaking, powerful, hopeful, very necessary book by the talented author, Francesca Sanna. Told through the eyes of a family who need to uproot their home and journey across the unknown to find safety, The Journey is ultimately, an empathic tale that encompasses the unsettling reality of the countless number of refugees who fight everyday to cross lands and borders to hopefully reach a place that is promised to be safe. It is an honest portrayal of the horrors of forced migration and the devastation of war, but also of the unconditional love of a mother and her natural instinct to protect her children. We witness the family look up into the sky and see a flock of migrating birds that do not face the barriers that they do. Sanna’s richly block-coloured illustrations are both haunting and graceful, but the fairy-tale like settings and the sensitive cased metaphors resonate at just the right tone for young readers. This book is vital. For young readers and old. A picture book that will evoke questions, encourage empathy and fundamentally help children to understand the world we live in.
The Journey • Francesca Sanna • Flying Eye Books
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