Published in the late 90s or early 2000s, it’s a children’s picture book about a secret jungle temple in which the reader has to uncover a secret language symbol by symbol to choose different doors to get through the temple. If you chose the wrong passage ways, you’d meet different gruesome but mild ends. At the very end of the book is the complete symbol language alphabet. I was obsessed with this book in fifth grade (1999-2000) and tried to unsuccessfully get one of my best fiends to write notes at school using the symbol language. It’s extremely well-illustrated. I think the temple is a pyramid? There are a lot of monkeys, possibly lemurs. This was during the whole Mummy series release era and Nickelodeon’s Legend of the Hidden Temple rerun peak era, so I’m hoping this book was more popular than I think it was, even though I was the only one in my family and friends obsessed with it.
Lost Classics of Teen Lit: Name That Book! 