Module 3 - Jumanji

Module 3 – Jumanji

Book Summary –

Judy and Peter are at home alone and find a game called Jumanji outside.  They decide to play it.  They read the instructions, but do not take them seriously.  Once a game is started, it will not stop until someone wins.  They roll their eyes and start the game.  Then this jungle adventure comes to life.  All of a sudden, after rolls, there are monkeys, and a lion in their house.  There are monsoons and a rhinoceros stampede.  They know that they must finish the game, but things are getting worse.  Finally Judy wins the game, and everything disappears.  Their parents arrive home and ask them about their exciting afternoon

APA Reference –

Van Allsburg, C. (1981). Jumanji.  Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company.

My Impressions –

This is just a fun book to read.  The illustrations in black and white are gorgeous (hence the Caldecott Medal).  This is a book about many kids’ fantasy: a game come to life.  It has a sweet and thought provoking ending, making sure that the reader knows that this game will definitely continue with other kids

Professional Review –

Jumanji is a jungle adventure board game come to life via the magic that, in Van Allsburg’s world, is always waiting to leak into the everyday.  With successive dice rolls, deepest, darkest Africa invades the neat, solid, formally arranged rooms of the unsuspecting players’ house.  The players – a blasé brother and sister home alone – are momentarily dumbstruck but not really upset.  They steadfastly go on with a wicked gleam, raid the kitchen and hunker around the game board; rhinos charge intently through the living room (and right into one’s line of vision); a Python coils on the mantel, its pattern set off by a leafy slipcover design to give a jungle camouflage effect.  As in The Garden of Abdul Gasazi (Houghton, 1979), which Jumanji outdoes in story terms, real and unreal rub shoulders in three-dimensional drawings extraordinary for the multiplicity of gray tones the artist achieves and the startling contrasts with brilliant white.  The eye-fooling angles, looming shadows and shifting perspectives are worthy of Hitchcock, yet all these “special effects” are supplied with only a pencil.
Pollack, P. D. (1981). Jumanji (book review). School Library Journal, 27(9), 60.

Library Uses –

Discussion of this book could segue into other board games that the students like and which board games would actually be fun in real life.  The students could draw a picture of themselves living in the world of their favorite board game.