Yet, kids love them–Van Allsburg is one of the most-requested authors to appear at Quail Ridge, according to store employees. I didn’t encounter a few of these books until I was older and, even then, I was left with the sense that I was going to have a nightmare about them after closing the cover. The Sweetest Fig gives a greedy, wish-seeking dentist a masterfully warped comeuppance (and a victory for Van Allsburg’s dog Fritz, who cameos in all of his works).

Bad Day at Riverbend explores the angst of the inhabitants of a black-and-white Western landscape where bursts of crayon color appear in blotches on the landscape. The Wretched Stone is told from the journals of a sea captain whose crew is enraptured by a glowing stone, sitting around it with blank stares (any resemblance to television is purely coincidental). Other Van Allsburg books almost have the feel of a Twilight Zone episode for children. The Polar Express is based on the simple childhood dream of meeting Santa, yet it starts with the unnerving situation of a strange train heading down the streets of a snowy suburban neighborhood, and ends on a note of loss, with a bell from Santa’s sleigh giving a ring that none but the narrator can hear (the popular motion-captured CGI movie version, with its bulky animated characters, is unsettling for completely different reasons). When rhinos burst through the living room and monkeys menace the children playing Jumanji‘s titular game, Van Allsburg’s gorgeous black-and-white illustrations convey both the utter absurdity of what’s happening and the tangible sense of kids being stuck in a rapidly demolished house with killer jungle animals. The second is to treat the supernatural elements in the stories with absolute realism.

The first is that they respect the intelligence of their young readers to figure out what is happening long before the characters in the stories do. Van Allsburg, who appears at Quail Ridge Books & Music on Nov.11, writes seemingly sweet, unassuming picture books that rely on two key rules. But there’s something richer, more mysterious and darker beneath the surface, and that’s what has kept his books alive in the imaginations of a generation of children–and led many to pass them down to their own children in turn. Sure, Jumanjiseems like a delightful romp about a jungle-themed board game whose obstacles come to life until the young players finish, and The Polar Express is about a magical visit to Santa’s workshop at the North Pole. It’s funny how easy it is to think of Chris Val Allsburg’s picture books as whimsical tales for children.

Jumanji by Chris Van Allsburg