"The Giant Jam Sandwich" Story & Pictures by John Vernon Lord, Verses by Janet Burroway (First published by Jonathan Cape Ltd in 1972, this edition by Piper Books, Pan Books, London 1988), Part 3

 

Not only this book is a great treat for any young child but it's a perfect example of  pictures and text complementing each other. Janet Burroway's rhyming verse is so concise, while full humorous dialogues and descriptions. It sets the pace for the story, creating anticipation for what's to come in the next page, while always in line with the pictures - so effective! A complete contrast with many contemporary children's books that rely so heavily on gimmicks, but have such poor content.

 

John Vernon Lord's illustrations are a treasure to any illustrator.The characters in the book are so well observed they could each tell a story in their own right. Their clothes, postures, expressions make me laugh each time I look at the book and always remind me of characters from TV shows of that era! Here is a very interesting lecture given by the artist on this particular book (a link from Wikipedia): http://www.fulltable.com/VTS/g/gjs/g.htm

 

 

"The Giant Jam Sandwich" Story & Pictures by John Vernon Lord, Verses by Janet Burroway (First published by Jonathan Cape Ltd in 1972, this edition by Piper Books, Pan Books, London 1988), Part 2

 

This is the amazing story of a small town plagued by wasps, which causes the inhabitants to come up with a very creative plan to get rid of them! They bake a giant loaf of bread in order to make a giant jam sandwich in order to attract and capture all the wasps into it! One can spend hours looking at the wonderful characters created by John Vernon Lord (born in Glossop, Derbyshire, 1939)! The amount of work, talent and imagination that's gone into this book is unbelievable. No wonder it has never been out of print since it was first published in 1972! A classic children's book.

 

Here is a link for the artist's biography: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Vernon_Lord And here is a link for his own beautiful blog, full of his work and personal notes by the artist: http://johnvernonlord.blogspot.co.uk/

 

 

 

"The Giant Jam Sandwich" Story & Pictures by John Vernon Lord, Verses by Janet Burroway (First published by Jonathan Cape Ltd in 1972, this edition by Piper Books, Pan Books, London 1988), Part 1

 

One of my all-time favourite picture books!