Jumangi - Chris Van Allsburg"s Great Picture Book
A picture book about a brother and sister who find a board game and begin to play it.
At each place they land the board reads a different event, such as lion attacks.
Only rather then being simple game elements these events occur for real, and if the children are to stop the events they must finish the game, no matter how dangerous that gets.
Heavily rendered and filled with detail this picture books style tells the story of a surreal world, both the surreal story of childhood imagination, and of a magical event.
For many this story is already known in part through the movie, however unlike that movie this book is a story about children, with adults factoring very little into the events.
For within the first scene the mother speaks to her children, but only the children are seen in the first picture, as they play.
The parents then leave the house, only to return when the adventure is over.
After some time with the parents gone and nothing to do the brother and sister leave the house to find something interesting.
As with fairy tales the brother and sister team is a team of friendship rather then fighting.
And so it is they are seen running together from their safe home symbolized by the large opening in the wall in the distance.
Behind them on horseback sits a sentinel, a statue in the middle of the path which we know leads to their house.
Even on the return home Allsburg's choice of angles leaves the children powerless, for as the children begin the game, a game which they don't yet understand, until they hear the lion from the game roar behind them.
From this point on the children too take a back seat becoming only minor characters pushed back into the distance behind the things they face, or not pictured at all.
Only once as the girl Judy moves her piece do we see her in even a medium long shot, and in this picture her face is obscured some by the monsoon rains that fall, and around her sit the monkey's which stole her food, reminding us by their presence, and that this story is about the strange game as much as the children who must experience it.
On beating the game the children run outside to leave it where they found it, however in this picture only the boy is visible as he runs out the door.
He however is a distant figure hidden behind a railing and stairs so only his head and part of his back and arms are visible.
They then fall asleep, an event we are only told of rather then shown.
Then the parents come home but their faces are not placed in the frame, for adults are not shown in this book they are distant figures from the strange events that the game brings about.
And as the children speak with their parents they look out the window, to see two figures running away with the game, both ant a low angle and powerless.
At each place they land the board reads a different event, such as lion attacks.
Only rather then being simple game elements these events occur for real, and if the children are to stop the events they must finish the game, no matter how dangerous that gets.
Heavily rendered and filled with detail this picture books style tells the story of a surreal world, both the surreal story of childhood imagination, and of a magical event.
For many this story is already known in part through the movie, however unlike that movie this book is a story about children, with adults factoring very little into the events.
For within the first scene the mother speaks to her children, but only the children are seen in the first picture, as they play.
The parents then leave the house, only to return when the adventure is over.
After some time with the parents gone and nothing to do the brother and sister leave the house to find something interesting.
As with fairy tales the brother and sister team is a team of friendship rather then fighting.
And so it is they are seen running together from their safe home symbolized by the large opening in the wall in the distance.
Behind them on horseback sits a sentinel, a statue in the middle of the path which we know leads to their house.
Even on the return home Allsburg's choice of angles leaves the children powerless, for as the children begin the game, a game which they don't yet understand, until they hear the lion from the game roar behind them.
From this point on the children too take a back seat becoming only minor characters pushed back into the distance behind the things they face, or not pictured at all.
Only once as the girl Judy moves her piece do we see her in even a medium long shot, and in this picture her face is obscured some by the monsoon rains that fall, and around her sit the monkey's which stole her food, reminding us by their presence, and that this story is about the strange game as much as the children who must experience it.
On beating the game the children run outside to leave it where they found it, however in this picture only the boy is visible as he runs out the door.
He however is a distant figure hidden behind a railing and stairs so only his head and part of his back and arms are visible.
They then fall asleep, an event we are only told of rather then shown.
Then the parents come home but their faces are not placed in the frame, for adults are not shown in this book they are distant figures from the strange events that the game brings about.
And as the children speak with their parents they look out the window, to see two figures running away with the game, both ant a low angle and powerless.