Slam by Adam Stower

SLAM by Adam Stower. Pattu Rating 5

We read this book We viewed this picture story book - Pattu's first and boy, did we have fun!


The book tells a story of consequences through just the illustrations and some sounds (through onomatopoetic expressions). It all starts when this boy goes out with his walkman on, oblivious to the complete mess that results from SLAM-ming the door! The ball that is caught on the roof falls on a resting cat which springs in fright, causing further fright and a row of disasters. All this while the boy walks on with just the music in his ears, completely insulated from his surroundings.

We discovered a variety of sounds... sound of a soft fall, hard fall, bounce, bump, clash, splash, screech, scrunnnch, huff puff...oh so many more...

Another very insteresting aspect is that there are multiple threads of consequences that come together in the final mess and there are lots of little details that you'll discover (like a little jet that crashes into a little girl's kite, a cat that goes after a fish and so on) in the second, third, and subsequent readings. Pattu pointed to a couple of them that I hadn't noticed myself! So you can even weave many stories by just shifting your perspective. Last night was riot with Pattu laughing till her jaws ached and me acting the disaster till all my joints and my throat ached - but it was all worth it to see Pattu laugh like that :)

Now, I have to hide this book before my joints give in! I'm looking to buy a copy (the one I have is from the library).

There's one more like this by Quentin Blake... will review shortly.