Work1981
Jumanji is a 1981 fantasy children's picture book written and illustrated by American author Chris Van Allsburg. The book is about an enchanted board game that incorporates wild a…
Read and enrich the people, organizations and context referenced in case files.
Explore the cases that include this wiki entry.
No case files include this entry yet.
Investigate this subjectBe the first to comment.
Jumanji is a 1981 fantasy children's picture book written and illustrated by American author Chris Van Allsburg. The book is about an enchanted board game that incorporates wild animals and other jungle elements as the game is played in real life.
Jumanji is a 1981 fantasy children's picture book written and illustrated by American author Chris Van Allsburg. The book is about an enchanted board game that incorporates wild animals and other jungle elements as the game is played in real life. The book was adapted into a 1995 film of the same name and spawned a franchise that includes three sequels and an animated series.
A sequel to the book, entitled Zathura, was released in 2002.
While their parents are out for the day with plans to bring some guests home from the opera, Judy and Peter Shepherd, after playing with some toys, become bored and decide to go to the park. There, they find a safari-themed board game called Jumanji. Taking the game home, they find a warning message: "VERY IMPORTANT. ONCE A GAME OF JUMANJI HAS STARTED, IT WILL NOT BE OVER UNTIL ONE PLAYER REACHES THE GOLDEN CITY." Ignoring the warning, they start to play.
The pair soon discovers that any dangers encountered in the game spring to life somewhere in the house. When Peter rolls a seven and lands on a space that says "Lion attacks, move back two spaces", an actual lion appears. Judy and Peter are able to trap it in the bedroom. They reluctantly continue the game as nobody will believe them that a lion appeared in their house.
Judy then rolls an eight and lands on a space that says "Monkeys steal food, miss one turn". This causes some monkeys to appear and cause a mess in the kitchen.
Peter then rolls and lands on a space that says "Monsoon season begins, miss one turn". This causes a monsoon to happen in their house where the lightning frightens the monkeys out of the kitchen.
Judy rolls the dice and lands on a space that says "Guide gets lost, lose a turn". The rain stops and Judy and Peter find a guide hunched over with a map trying to get his bearings. Judy and Peter are unable to get his attention.
Peter then rolls a six and lands on a space that says "Bitten by tsetse fly, contract sleeping sickness, lose a turn". A tsetse fly then appears. Peter tries to swat it away only to contract the sleeping sickness.
After being unable to wake Peter up, Judy rolls the dice and lands on a space that says "Rhinoceros stampede, go back two spaces". This causes a rhinoceros stampede to occur in their house as the rhinoceros herd runs through the living room and the dining room. It is enough to wake Peter up as he and Judy cover their ears to block out the noise of the breaking items.
Peter then rolls the dice and lands on a space that says "Python sneaks into camp, go back one space". An 8 ft. python then appears on top of the fireplace as it starts to wrap around the mantle of the clock. Looking up from his map, the guide moves to the far corner of the room and sits down on the couch with the monkeys.
After Judy lands on a blank space, Peter rolls a three and lands on a space that says "Volcano erupts, go back three spaces". The room begins to get warm and shakes a little. Molten lava then comes out of the fireplace and hits the monsoon waters causing the room to be filled with steam.
Van Allsburg declared that he often thinks of combining incongruous images to evoke a feeling of "cognitive dissonance", coming up with the idea of wild animals in a living room. Combining that with twisting how board games often rely on the player's imagination, he "wondered what it'd be like to play a board game that didn't require any imagination" because the events actually happened, conceiving a jungle adventure game "in which the game came to life. And all the pictures that I wanted to draw would actually be manifestations of gameplay." The name "Jumanji" was a meaningless name that came to him as he tried to conceive "something slightly exotic and something that evoked the idea of the jungle".
Zathura (published in 2002) is a sequel to Jumanji also written by Van Allsburg. In the book, Danny and Walter Budwing (who appear at the end of Jumanji) find a science fiction board game whose elements similarly come to life. It was adapted to the film Zathura: A Space Adventure in 2005.
Jumanji, a 1995 film based on the story, is an adaptation of the picture book. The film has adult characters who did not appear in the original story: Alan Parrish (Robin Williams/Adam Hann-Byrd), Sarah Whittle (Bonnie Hunt/Laura Bell Bundy), Officer Carl Bentley (David Alan Grier), Aunt Nora (Bebe Neuwirth), and big-game hunter Van Pelt (Jonathan Hyde, who al
Source: Jumanji (picture book) (CC BY-SA)
We label verified structured information, user opinions, and AI-discovered relationships separately.
Judy then rolls the dice and lands on a space that says "Discover shortcut, roll again". Judy then sees the python unwrapping itself from the clock. Peter states that if Judy rolls a 12, she'll win the game. Judy rolls the dice as they land on 12. It takes her to the end of the game as she shouts "Jumanji" as loud as she could.
In an instant when the steam in the room becomes thicker and thicker, everything is back to normal and everything that came out of the game is gone. The siblings rush back to the park before their parents return, and replace the game where they had found it. Then they return home where they put their toys away and play with a picture puzzle. Halfway through, Judy and Peter fall asleep on the couch.
Judy and Peter's parents come home and awaken their children. Soon, their guests have arrived. When Peter talks about their experiences with Jumanji, the adults laugh at it. Their mother assumes that they came down with the sleeping sickness and sends them up to their bedrooms while stating that they can finish their puzzle later and then have some dinner.
After they come back downstairs, Judy and Peter find that their father moved the puzzle to the den. They resume their puzzle as Mrs. Budrig brings them some food. She mentions how her sons Danny and Walter never bother to finish the games they play nor read the instructions. She comments that they'll learn at some point as she rejoins the party. While quoting "I hope so", Judy and Peter look outside and see Danny and Walter excitedly returning from the park with Jumanji in their hands.
