Sticky jam : the story of sugar

Bookseller Publisher Review

These two titles are examples of the hybridisation of the picture book and informational text genres and both loosely echo the structure of traditional tales such as The House That Jack Built. They describe the production of familiar items, without routinely repeating every preceding stage on each new spread. In each book, the opening lines recur as a ‘tag’ that serves as a lucid reminder of how far the product has come from its point of origin. The illustrations are stylish and, in the main part, colourful. In both books, McEwen drops to a limited palette in depicting more industrial aspects of production, evoking mechanised and, in the case of Sticky Jam, necessarily sterile processes, that seem remote from the agricultural and familial settings at the beginning and end of each story. While the illustrations on these spreads are stylised, the language is reasonably technical. Adult readers may anticipate a glossary where none is provided; however, endnotes offer extra information to help them answer children’s questions. The books have links to the early Studies of Society and Environment/Human Society and Its Environment curriculum and they should sit nicely with more conventional ‘where does it come from?’ books, particularly in providing an accessible introduction for students about to make industry visits. Lizzie Whyte works for Heinemann Library. C. 2003 Thorpe-Bowker and contributors