Jumanji

Author: Chris Van Allsburg
Illustrator: Chris Van Allsburg
Publisher:
Date: 1981
Awards: Caldecott Honor
Ages: 4-8
Topics: picture book, games, board game, animals, fantasy, jungle
Summary: A board game comes to life for a boy and girl turning their home into a jungle with live animals.

Book Connections

• Jumanji from Wikipedia

Topic Connections

• Jumanji from Google Books
  Includes interior pages from book
• Jumanji Teacher's Guide from Houghton Mifflin

Learning Connections

• Advice. Create a poster sharing some advice you learned from reading the book. For example, "read the directions first."
• Animal Adventure. Write your own adventure about an animal coming to life.
• Background. Examine the background of each page. What does this tell you about the characters in the story?
• Books into Movies. Lots of books have been made into movies. Compare the book Jumanji to movie. Which do you like better, why? How well did the book's visual elements come across in the movie? What book do you think would make a good movie? Why?
• Dynamic Dialogue. The dialogue in this book is very interesting. Develop some dialogue to bring another dimension to a wordless book such as Sector 7 or Tuesday.
• Find Fritz. The illustrator puts a picture of his Fritz his English bull terrier in all his stories. Can you find him? What secret element will you put in all your stories?
• Magical Board Game. Think about the board game you play. Which would you like to bring to life? Why? Or, invent your own magical board game. Write a story about the game.
• Real and Fantasy. Explore one of the animals shown in the book. How accurate are the illustrations and activities of the animal?
• Step-by-Step. Write step-by-step instructions... what happens when they aren't followed exactly?
• Verb Hunt. Van Allsburg uses lots of great verbs. Go on a verb hunt and find your favorites. Use these in your own writing.

Teaching Connections

• Integrating Jumanji into the Curriculum
• Jumanji from Carol Hurst

Learn More

Do a Thinkfinity search for lessons related to this book.

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