Jumanji

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

     Jumanji is another one of Chris Van Allsburg's children's book that has a great story and vivid illustrations. Jumanji not only won a Caldecott Award in 1981, but also won The National Book Award in 1982. In 1996, Jumanji was made into a film.
      In this children's book, the characters Judy and Peter find a board game under a tree in the park and decide to give the boring game a try! The kids found out that the game Jumanji was nothing boring about it! During the game, they saw stampeding animals from a jungle in their living room! The story is enhanced by Van Allsburg's great artwork.
      Alike his award winning book The Polar Express and his young adult's picture book The Sweetest Fig, I am completely impressed with the illustrations again. In Jumanji, he conveys pictures of a normal and quiet living room that was taken over by wild animals.
     After reading this story, "the big idea" would be a great skill to teach using this book in the lower grades.  Using chart paper, the teacher could write down the main events that happened while students are retelling the story.  This story is great for determining the important events.  To expand the lesson, inferencing would be great to go into as well.