Chris Van Allsburg is an American illustrator and writer of children`s books. He is credited with writing and illustrating around 20 books. His art even made its way on to a cover of C.S. Lewis`s The Chronicles of Narnia. Van Allsburg is best known for creating Jumanji (1981) and The Polar Express (1985). Both the stories and additionally Zathura (2002), the sequel to Jumanji, have been turned into feature films of the same names. All the films have been successful, with the Jumanji series becoming an integral part of pop culture. Van Allsburg has also been involved with the filmmaking process. He worked with the screenwriting for Jumanji (1995) and the visual development for The Little Mermaid (1989). His 2019 releases include Jumanji: The Next Level, for which he is an executive producer.