Jim Curious and the Jungle Journey

by Editions 2024, Matthias Picard

Overview

This wordless picture book follows a boy’s jungle adventures in breathtaking 3-D illustrations
 
In Jim Curious and the Jungle Journey, a young boy goes on an adventure in an old-fashioned diving suit. After waking up in bed (or is he really awake?), Jim walks through a mirror and into a shallow swamp that leads to a mysterious island. There, in the jungle, he encounters snakes, monkeys, and a giant turtle, as well as some creepy-crawly creatures, before discovering an ancient abandoned temple deep in the heart of the jungle.

 

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781419736209
Publisher:	Abrams Books for Young Readers
Publication date:	01/12/2021
Pages:	60
Product dimensions:	9.40(w) x 13.00(h) x 0.60(d)
Age Range:	4 - 8 Years

About the Author

Matthias Picard is a graphic artist who has published the graphic novel Jeanine in France.

Editorial Reviews

2020-11-27
An intrepid explorer follows up his Jim Curious: Voyage to the Heart of the Sea (2014) with a new outing in this wordless 3-D French import.

Two furnished pairs of card-stock eyeglasses allow viewers to follow as Jim steps through a mirror in his room and finds himself in a lush prehistoric swamp, which gives way through a pleasing variety of big, full-page scenes and large sequential panels to a dark contemporary forest that conceals tumbled stone ruins. The trek takes a (more) surreal turn then, as, after climbing a rugged hill, he finds himself walking over a sea bed, past sunken ships and detritus. He ends up back in his own little house, which, he discovers in a climactic double gatefold, is now surrounded with some of the tropical flora and fauna he encountered on his way. Most of the art is blurry to the naked eye, but the glasses reveal multiple depths and layers as well as deep shadows, flights of birds and insects in fore- and backgrounds, and a mysterious silvery shimmer. This shows itself to best effect in a double-page-spread swirl of moths and butterflies and, later, a gallery of apes and monkeys from various parts of the globe. Readers will find themselves flipping back and forth to revisit particularly memorable images: vine-enshrouded pyramids rising high above the forest; Jim placidly walking toward them as an enormous tortoise looms behind. As before, Jim is entirely enclosed in what looks like a heavy antique diving suit, his pale, smiling visage visible through the face shield.

A visual gimmick to be sure, but it’s put to particularly effective use. (Novelty. 6-9)

Kirkus Reviews