The Jumbies

Young Corinne La Mer isn’t afraid of anything, especially things that go bump in the night. While all the other kids in her small island village are scared of the creatures in the forest, Corinne lives on its edge and has seen nothing to validate her friends’ fears. After her mother passed, Corinne refused to be afraid of anything anymore.  

A practical and shrewd protagonist, Corinne is suspicious of a new woman who arrives on market day. The other children avoid her like the plague, whispering that she reeks of the forest, and their murmurs intensify when she approaches the witch’s table. Yet this mysterious figure intrigues Corinne. When the stranger stops at Corinne’s fruit stand, Corinne greets her politely. The woman, who introduces herself as Severine, raves about the oranges and insists they possess an almost magical quality. Soon, Severine seems to be everywhere in Corinne’s life—seducing her father and attempting to mother her. The longer Severine stays, the more strange phenomena occur.  

Strange incidents begin plaguing the village: Corinne’s friend Bouki nearly drowns while playing by the river, the local witch grows increasingly on edge with ominous warnings about Corinne’s family, and an unnatural stench fills Corinne’s house whenever Severine attempts to cook. As an accomplished cook herself, Corinne refuses to let her father eat anything Severine prepares. But one evening, she returns home late to find her father in a strange trance, staring at a bowl of Severine’s soup. 

Severine then reveals her true nature as a jumbie—a supernatural, hideous forest creature who claims to be Corinne’s aunt. She insists that Corinne is half jumbie herself, which explains her extraordinary talent for growing divine fruit. Severine demands that Corinne join her in reclaiming the village and island for the jumbies. When loyal, honest Corinne refuses, Severine uses magic to banish her from her own home and begins controlling the villagers one by one, starting with her father. 

Left with no resources and shaken by questions about her origins, Corinne recruits several friends to defeat Severine and protect their village—because failure means none of them will have a home to return to. 

The Jumbies is a wonderfully macabre story with a straightforward plot and accessible language, perfect for younger readers. However, readers averse to horror may want to avoid it due to some heavy, scary elements. The adult characters, aside from the witch, play disappointingly weak roles—Corinne’s father succumbs to Severine’s influence with little resistance, which feels somewhat lazy. Despite this flaw, the novel proves inspiring and creative, expertly weaving Caribbean folklore themes into well-crafted worldbuilding that remains descriptive without becoming overly complicated. 

The Jumbies offers a creepy atmosphere, imaginative monsters, and youthful wit that will captivate readers. The book features supernatural creatures ranging from evil to good, and Corinne discovers that many are simply seeking a better home in a world that has banished them to the forest. While some use horrifying methods to reclaim their territory, Corinne proves to be a kind and intelligent protagonist who recognizes that monsters like Severine don’t represent all of her kind. Ultimately, this beautiful story delivers a sweet message: blood doesn’t define family, and home can always be found elsewhere. 

Sexual Content  

• None 

Violence  

• When Corinne first meets brothers Bouki and Malik, they steal her necklace, tie it to an animal, and giggle as Corinne runs into the forest to retrieve it. When she returns with her necklace, she finds one of them “[holding] a small frog in his hands over the top of the well. It was struggling, but he held it firmly. Their next victim, Corinne thought. Corinne let [her necklace] dangle from her fingers. Its smooth surface gleamed. The smile slid off the boy’s face.” The boys run away, though they later become friends with her. 
• When Corinne sets up her food stand, a woman insists that Corinne stole her spot. “‘Go somewhere else, darling,’ the seller said. Her lips smiled, but her eyes were as hard as pebbles.” Corinne decides it isn’t worth fighting and sets up elsewhere.  
• To get back at Bouki and Malik, Corinne sets a trap for them, making them fall into a pit of scorpions. Bouki “barely noticed the small insect that scrambled up the rope and out of the well. Soon there was another and another. Bouki jumped back. ‘Scorpions!’ he cried out. Malik dropped the rope and ran to his brother. There was a scorpion hanging onto Bouki’s tattered shirt.” Nobody is hurt, and this settles the score between Corinne and the brothers. 
• While Corinne swims in the river with her friends, Severine attacks them. The witch notices Severine trying to drown Bouki and dives in after Severine. “[The witch] knocked [Severine] away from the children. The jumbie turned and dug her bony fingers into the witch’s flesh. She bore down hard. The witch raised her right arm and struck mightily at the jumbie’s chest. At the same time, she felt a sharp pain as her other arm snapped in two.” The children are fine, but the witch loses her arm. The scene is one page.  
• After Corinne kicks Severine out of her house, Severine storms into the forest. In her anger, she kills an animal. “[Severine’s] hand shot out and grabbed a small furry creature by the neck. It wriggled as Severine squeezed tighter and tighter with her thumb and forefinger until the small bones snapped and the creature became still.” 
• When Severine cooks a trance-inducing dinner for Corinne and her father, Corinne refuses to eat it. “Severine pushed the bowl of stew toward Corinne. Corinne jerked away, causing Severine to slop stew onto the floor. Severine grabbed Corinne’s wrist and shoved her to the ground, right into the foul-smelling stew. ‘You can’t resist me!’ Severine shrieked.” The stew burns Corinne. 
• There is a brief mention of slavery as Severine recounts her history with her sister. “I had a sister. She pitied people. She went inside the ships and saw that some of the people were chained below. She helped them escape and swim to the island while I dealt with the others. Some of the people [on the ship had] chained up others and left them to rot in the bottoms of their ships. My sister felt sorry for them. I never did.” 
• Corinne tries to escape from Severine with her father, Pierre. “Corinne grabbed her papa around the waist and tried to hoist him out of the chair. He was much too large and heavy and they both fell on the floor. She got up and began to pull him away, but Severine grabbed his other hand and pulled Pierre back into his chair. Then she picked Corinne up by the neck. Corinne struggled and kicked at the air as Severine’s fingers began to squeeze tighter and tighter around her throat.” Corinne escapes with minimal bruising. 
• Frustrated with Corinne, Severine decides to call all the monstrous creatures of the forest to her aid. One of them, a soucouyant, attacks Bouki and Malik. “As they crawled back toward the fighting, they picked up several stones and shoved them into their pockets. When they were finally at the side of the road, they loaded up their slingshots and started to shoot. The soucouyant backed up at first, but then it barreled toward them in a blur of flame. Just as it was about to engulf the boys, an oar smacked it to the ground.” The boys and Hugo, the baker who saves them with the oar, are unharmed. 
• In the aftermath of the creatures attacking their village, Corinne describes the bloody scene. “Every now and then, the children stepped over gory tracks where the wounded had been dragged off into the woods. Whether the victims were human or jumbie, they could not tell. The island had never been so quiet.” This is the only part of the battle described.  
• However, the jumbies soon come back for Bouki and Malik, kidnapping them and dragging them to the forest. “A little jumbie man was right behind Malik. Bouki grabbed Malik’s arm quickly, but the [jumbie] caught Malik’s other arm and Bouki’s leg in a vicious grip. It dragged the brothers back between the trees. The fighting adults never noticed. In seconds, all that was left of the brothers was one fake coconut husk foot and the small straw hat.” The boys are recovered unharmed.  
• Corinne’s friend Dru has to fend off a jumbie alone when she gets separated from her friends. She sets her attacker on fire. “The smell of burning fur filled the air. The lagahoo rushed forward and fell against the bush that had entangled Dru. The force of the crash freed Dru. Only torn bits of her shirt and a few strands of hair were left behind.” Dru is unharmed; however, she loses most of her hair. 
• When Corinne confronts Severine, Corinne’s father is under Severine’s control and restrains Corinne. “Pierre put his hands over Corinne’s mouth. She stamped on his feet and struggled to get free but it was no use. Fishing out on the sea had made her father a strong man, and now that Severine had changed him, he was even stronger. Corinne looked at the fallen oranges. She brought her foot down on a large one and turned her face away as the juice flew right up into Pierre’s face. He howled again and loosened his grip long enough for Corinne to pull away. Corinne grabbed another orange and threw it right at her father’s face.” Corinne’s father gains control of himself, and no one is harmed.  
• After Pierre frees himself, Severine accidentally falls off a cliff. “Severine flailed and managed to grab onto the rock face, but her green cloth snagged in the branches of the tree. She tugged at the cloth. The tree tipped again and tore away from the cliff. A branch swept her hand off the rock, and Severine spiraled down, down, down with the tree toward the sea far below.” There is no description of her beyond this, and the story implies that Severine is dead.  

Drugs and Alcohol  

• The story features magical potions, though characters only reference them rather than actually drinking them. While advising Corinne, the witch explains that “everybody wants a fast, easy solution. Maybe if you took care of your skin, you wouldn’t have gotten the boil in the first place. Maybe if you worked harder, you would make more money. Maybe that person isn’t the right one for you. Maybe if you found a better way to farm, your crop would come up better. But nobody wants to hear those things. They want a bottle. Instant success! Something to drink, or sprinkle, or spill on the ground. They want magic from nothing.” 
• In an effort to kidnap Corinne, Severine drugs Pierre. “Severine leaned in to make sure every single drop went in. She watched him intently as the liquid went down his throat, and something in his eyes began to change. They became cloudy, as if a storm was swirling right in his eyes. She watched Pierre scoop more of the stew into his mouth. Then he dropped the spoon and attacked the bowl like a greedy animal.” 

Language  

• Language is tame, but words like stupid, idiot, and hell appear frequently. 

Supernatural  

• This novel uses Caribbean folklore and references to the supernatural on nearly every page. Corinne and her friends have many interactions with magic, mostly through magical creatures called jumbies and potions, though Corinne does have abilities of her own.  
• For example, Severine is a jumbie. Before obtaining human form, Severine cries about her missing sister, and as her tears hit the ground, “they turned into centipedes that scattered over the graves.”  
• The villagers have many stories about jumbies. Corinne explains that the villagers talk about “creatures with backward feet, and women who could shed their skin, and women with hooves for feet. Even though her papa told her these stories were not true, there must have been a reason no one ever came this far into the forest.” 
• While saving Bouki from drowning, the witch notices Severine “turn herself invisible.” 
• When Corinne figures out that Severine is a jumbie, Severine lets her façade fade. “Severine came closer. As she did, her body shrank down a little. Corinne could see insects were crawling up and around Severine’s body. Hundreds of millipedes and centipedes, cockroaches, and beetles crawled in and out of the crags of her body. They dashed in and out of the fine fur and bored their way through her chest, so that Corinne could see straight through it like an old rotten tree.” 
• Severine studies Corinne’s necklace and notes that “it was Forming Magic, an ancient power that was created at the same time that the very earth was made. It was bigger and more powerful than she herself — more powerful than anything she had ever known.” This is why Corinne can grow oranges unnaturally well.  
• When Bouki and Malik defeat the soucouyant, they describe her. “She was a soucouyant — a malicious fireball that would suck the lifeblood out of anyone, even a baby. Her skin pooled around her, leaving Bouki holding the empty shell of her hand. He shuddered and let it fall with a slap against the rest of the discarded skin while the flame-body gathered up into a ball and hovered a few feet above the ground.” 
• Standing a ways away from where the jumbies are attacking her village, Corinne spots a jumbie who has clearly broken away from the fight. “When Corinne looked up, the woman smiled, then shed her skin and burst into yellow flames.” 
• In her final confrontation with Severine, Corinne cries out of hopelessness. However, “The tears that streamed down Corinne’s cheeks had formed a tiny, muddy pool around [a] seed. The seed trembled. Then it split open at the bottom and a tiny shoot of the palest green emerged from it and rooted itself into the ground. Corinne blinked. This was not the witch’s magic. It was her own.” The tree grows and tempts Severine to climb it.  
• In the aftermath of Severine, Corinne and the witch heal the village by planting new orange seeds. “‘Grow,’ [Corinne and the witch] said together. The seeds began to sprout. A few people in the crowd gasped. The orange trees curved upward. They hardened and turned brown as they grew into each other and formed a solid wall that reached far into the sky. The trees looked beautiful, but more than that, they smelled delicious. The people in the village couldn’t resist picking the fruit and eating it on the spot.” 

Spiritual Content  

• The book begins on All Hallows’ Eve. While walking with her father, Corinne overhears villagers talking about how “the spirits are out tonight,” and the children whisper about wanting to stay inside for fear of jumbies and the spirits.  

by Kate Schuyler