Chris Van Allsburg: "Jumanji"

Chris Van Allsburg was an artist before he was a writer. He had work displayed at the Whitney. Then he turned to storytelling.

"Jumanji" was his second book, in the early eighties, and it won the Caldecott. (It later "inspired" a movie, and words can't express how little I'm interested in the movie.)

In "Jumanji," two kids find a board game, and they imagine it will be tedious. But they soon understand that the text of the game is to be taken literally; if a card refers to invading rhinos, you will meet actual rhinos. If monkeys raid your "camp," you can expect to see monkeys climbing up your kitchen table.

The exotic crises of the game grow and grow and compound themselves, and it's only because little Judy reads instructions that the two children are able to survive. Judy rolls a twelve, races to the center of the board, and shouts JUMANJI!--with triumph--just before a hungry lion gets a chance to do his business in the living room.

Chris Van Allsburg draws with conviction. You feel you're looking at photos, even though the images depict monkeys at coffee tables. A falling mug in a kitchen scene casts a small shadow. The rain from a monsoon creates a puddle on top of an indoor carpet; candlepins float along like barrels in a river.

Van Allsburg has said that his interest is "the extraordinary meeting the ordinary"--dream worlds intersecting with everyday life--and you'll see this again in "Two Bad Ants," when two human nostrils briefly become enormous caverns. It's inspiring to take a short walk through Van Allsburg's mind.

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