The Incredible Journey is a novel published by Sheila Burnford in 1961. Burnford was born in Scotland and lived there until 1951 when she immigrated to Ontario with her husband. Her first decade in her adopted homeland provided the background and inspiration for the story. Although invariably categorized as a book for children, Burnford herself protested this demographic limiting of her intended readership. Throughout her life, she insisted that she had not written the book for children and that it was instead very much a story that readers of all ages could equally enjoy.
Burnford's first novel lingered in relative obscurity at first, threatening to become just another of many books about animals published, ignored, and forgotten. This fate was saved by Hollywood. The Walt Disney Company released the first cinematic adaptation of the book in 1963. Burnford suddenly found herself the writer of a bestseller in the wake of the adaptation. Since then, Burnford's story has become one of the most beloved novels marketed toward children that were published in the middle of the previous century. The rationale behind the generic categorization of The Incredible Journey as a children's book lies in its premise. The novel is an adventure tale of three animals—a Labrador retriever, a bull terrier, and a Siamese cat—crossing the wilderness of Canada on a three-hundred-mile trek to reunite with their missing masters. Interest in the story was renewed thirty years later with a hugely successful movie remake.
Burnford received multiple honors for writing The Incredible Journey. In 1963, the novel won both the Dorothy Canfield Fisher Children's Book Award and the Canadian Library Association Book of the Year for Children Award. That same year it also received the American Library Association's Aurianne Award, which honors outstanding achievements in books illustrating the humane treatment of animals.
