diff --git a/python/dask_cudf/dask_cudf/backends.py b/python/dask_cudf/dask_cudf/backends.py
index f02c75eb3e8..58f3d807f51 100644
--- a/python/dask_cudf/dask_cudf/backends.py
+++ b/python/dask_cudf/dask_cudf/backends.py
@@ -493,13 +493,10 @@ def read_parquet(*args, engine=None, **kwargs):
             )
 
         @staticmethod
-        def read_json(*args, engine=None, **kwargs):
-            return _default_backend(
-                dd.read_json,
-                *args,
-                engine=cudf.read_json,
-                **kwargs,
-            )
+        def read_json(*args, **kwargs):
+            from dask_cudf.io.json import read_json
+
+            return read_json(*args, **kwargs)
 
         @staticmethod
         def read_orc(*args, **kwargs):
diff --git a/python/dask_cudf/dask_cudf/io/json.py b/python/dask_cudf/dask_cudf/io/json.py
index 6c3c95d1a2e..6ab2ba415a5 100644
--- a/python/dask_cudf/dask_cudf/io/json.py
+++ b/python/dask_cudf/dask_cudf/io/json.py
@@ -6,4 +6,66 @@
 
 import cudf
 
-read_json = partial(dask.dataframe.read_json, engine=cudf.read_json)
+from dask_cudf.backends import _default_backend
+
+
+def read_json(url_path, engine="auto", **kwargs):
+    """Create a dask_cudf DataFrame collection from JSON data
+
+    This function wraps ``dask.dataframe.read_json``, and passes
+    ``engine=partial(cudf.read_json, engine="auto")`` by default.
+
+    Parameters
+    ----------
+    url_path: str, list of str
+        Location to read from. If a string, can include a glob character to
+        find a set of file names.
+        Supports protocol specifications such as ``"s3://"``.
+    engine : str or Callable, default "auto"
+        If str, this value will be used as the ``engine`` argument when
+        ``cudf.read_json`` is used to create each partition. If Callable,
+        this value will be used as the underlying function used to create
+        each partition from JSON data. The default value is "auto", so
+        that ``engine=partial(cudf.read_json, engine="auto")`` will be
+        pased to ``dask.dataframe.read_json`` by default.
+    **kwargs :
+        Key-word arguments to pass through to ``dask.dataframe.read_json``.
+
+    Returns
+    -------
+    dask_cudf.DataFrame
+
+    Examples
+    --------
+    Load single file
+
+    >>> from dask_cudf import read_json
+    >>> read_json('myfile.json')  # doctest: +SKIP
+
+    Load large line-delimited JSON files using partitions of approx
+    256MB size
+
+    >>> read_json('data/file*.csv', blocksize=2**28)  # doctest: +SKIP
+
+    Load nested JSON data
+
+    >>> read_json('myfile.json', engine='cudf_experimental')  # doctest: +SKIP
+
+    See Also
+    --------
+    dask.dataframe.io.json.read_json
+    """
+
+    # TODO: Add optimized code path to leverage the
+    # `byte_range` argument in `cudf.read_json` for
+    # local storage (see `dask_cudf.read_csv`)
+    return _default_backend(
+        dask.dataframe.read_json,
+        url_path,
+        engine=(
+            partial(cudf.read_json, engine=engine)
+            if isinstance(engine, str)
+            else engine
+        ),
+        **kwargs,
+    )
diff --git a/python/dask_cudf/dask_cudf/io/tests/test_json.py b/python/dask_cudf/dask_cudf/io/tests/test_json.py
index d19f7736e8e..9d26bf06545 100644
--- a/python/dask_cudf/dask_cudf/io/tests/test_json.py
+++ b/python/dask_cudf/dask_cudf/io/tests/test_json.py
@@ -71,3 +71,21 @@ def test_read_json_lines(lines):
         actual = dask_cudf.read_json(f, orient="records", lines=lines)
         actual_pd = pd.read_json(f, orient="records", lines=lines)
         dd.assert_eq(actual, actual_pd)
+
+
+def test_read_json_nested_experimental(tmp_path):
+    # Check that `engine="cudf_experimental"` can
+    # be used to support nested data
+    df = pd.DataFrame(
+        {
+            "a": [{"y": 2}, {"y": 4}, {"y": 6}, {"y": 8}],
+            "b": [[1, 2, 3], [4, 5], [6], [7]],
+            "c": [1, 3, 5, 7],
+        }
+    )
+    kwargs = dict(orient="records", lines=True)
+    with tmp_path / "data.json" as f:
+        df.to_json(f, **kwargs)
+        actual = dask_cudf.read_json(f, engine="cudf_experimental", **kwargs)
+        actual_pd = pd.read_json(f, **kwargs)
+        dd.assert_eq(actual, actual_pd)