Jungle Kids

An Emergency arises when the Jungle Kids gang find that their chocolate rations have been eaten by a monster. Plans are made to lure the interloper to his doom, and after many terrifying moments requiring great courage on the part of the Kids the chocolate thief is captured. Imaginative readers who have their own equivalent of the gang’s back garden Jungle Hut will rejoice in the antics of Todd (the narrator), Jamie (the gang’s smallest member) and Georgina (a small and bossy black girl).

Delightfully tongue-in-cheek, Wallace’s text and illustrations complement each other perfectly. He has both a verbal and painterly lightness of touch. The watercolour illustrations flow over the pages, sometimes in full or double page spreads, sometimes in a series of vignettes interspersed with text. Asides from the characters, drawn in pencil, add another dimension to this humorous and clever picture book.