Jumanji / Jumanji 30th Anniversary Edition [With Audio Download]

Chris Van Allsburg

Book - 1981

Left on their own for an afternoon, two bored and restless children find more excitement than they bargained for in a mysterious and mystical jungle adventure board game.

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1 / 2 copies available
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Children's Room jE/Van Allsburg Due Feb 16, 2024
Subjects
Genres
Board games
Dust jackets (Bindings) 1981.
Fantasy literature 1981.
Published
Boston : Houghton Mifflin 1981.
Language
English
Main Author
Chris Van Allsburg (author)
Online Access
Contributor biographical information
Publisher description
http://hmhbooks.com/chrisvanallsburg/
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0113497/
Physical Description
31 unnumbered pages : illustrations ; 26 x 29 cm
Audience
AD620L
Ages 6-8.
Decoding indicator: 80 (high) Semantic indicator: 90 (high) Syntactic indicator: 90 (high) Structure indicator: 90 (high)
Awards
Caldecott Medal, 1982
ISBN
9780395304488
9780547608389
9780758768131
Contents unavailable.
Review by Kirkus Book Review

Without pictures, this would be a fairly orthodox horror story for kids: a jungle board game, found in the park with ominous instructions, produces at each square the children land on whatever wild creature (""Lion attacks, move back two spaces"") or natural disaster (""Monsoon season begins, lose one turn"") is called for--until, beset, the two youngsters are throwing the dice wildly to reach the last square (""Jumanji, a city of golden buildings and towers"") and free themselves of the jungle terror. This episode, however, is framed, in a conventional picture-book made, by their departing parents' injunction to ""keep the house neat"" and the parents' return, with guests, after the game is over and all is calm. A second sly jest provides the obligatory twist at the end: a guest's two children are returning from the park, discarded game in hand. What makes the pictures themselves problematic is: l) the heavy load of portent present from the start (as in Van Allsburg's earlier The Garden of-Abdul Gasazi), which robs the book of a contrast between the normal, everyday and the macabre; 2) Van Allsburg's freeze-dry surrealism, which renders the turbulence as a static charade, or tableau; and 3) the paradox that imagined horror is more skin-prickling than horror seen--with a child's mouth agape. Van Allsburg's artistic skill seems largely confined to the devising of special effects--these largely dependent, in turn, on oversize close-ups and dramatic angles. Once their shock-value wears off, these are boring pictures--with no feel in particular (down to the inappropriately babyish toys) for a child's world. Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.