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    Slam!: A Tale of Consequences

    by Adam Stower

    Hardcover

    $17.95
    $17.95

    Temporarily Out of Stock Online

    Customer Reviews

    • ISBN-13: 9781771470070
    • Publisher: Owlkids Books
    • Publication date: 03/18/2014
    • Pages: 32
    • Product dimensions: 10.00(w) x 11.50(h) x 0.50(d)
    • Lexile: BR (what's this?)
    • Age Range: 3 - 7 Years


    Adam Stower is a graduate of both the Norwich School of Art and the University of Brighton. Slam! is his first picture book, for which he has won the Norfolk Library Silver Award for Children’s Books. He lives in Brighton, U.K.

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    “Don’t slam the door!” pleads a parent as a boy and his dog head out to run an errand, but the distracted boy doesn't hear. What follows is a fantastical calamity of epic and silly proportions, all thanks to a slammed door that dislodges a red ball. As the ball bounces through the neighborhood, it unleashes an escalating series of slapstick events that involve animals and people thrown off course and into the air, traffic jams and near-collisions, a fire-breathing dragon, tiny alien creatures — and a boy completely oblivious to the chaos he has caused.

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    Publishers Weekly
    01/13/2014
    Reading comics and wearing headphones, a boy doesn’t hear a grownup request that he not slam the door on his way out. This mild transgression triggers a series of events that start out as unfortunate (a startled pedestrian spews groceries all over a jogger), escalate to improbable (a truck full of sea creatures bursts open in the street), and end up downright fantastic (a dragon sleeping in the sewers takes flight, then crashes lands in town). Aliens in jetpacks and a van of circus performers also figure in. Nearly wordless, except for liberal use of onomatopoeia, the story is a feast of pratfalls, pileups, unexpected trajectories, and collisions with soft foods. Stower (The Wheels on the Bus) has a vigorous imagination, but he isn’t always the most skilled choreographer of incident, and readers may feel a little cross-eyed as they scan the page looking for jokes. The best way to enjoy the meticulously inked, carnival-colored drawings may be to follow just a few narrative threads to their satisfyingly silly resolution and focus on others in subsequent reads. Ages 3–7. Agent: Arena Illustration. (Mar.)
    From the Publisher

    Longlisted for the Capitol Choices Noteworthy Books for Children and Teens 2015 list

    "The story is a feast of pratfalls, pileups, unexpected trajectories, and collisions with soft foods ... satisfyingly silly."
    – Publishers Weekly

    "...a cumulative contagion of catastrophe...with teeming action on every page."
    – Kirkus Reviews

    "Follow the bouncing red ball, from the top of the hill to the subterranean depths at its bottom: a perfect example of illustrated cause and effect. This title has multiple uses for language arts curriculum tied to a fantasy-based plot. A first purchase."
    – School Library Journal

    "...an amusing calamitous fantasia...with seek-and-find appeal in the ongoing trajectory of various items and critters and in surprising takes on the town both above and belowground."
    – Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books

    Children's Literature - Ken Marantz and Sylvia Marantz
    This almost wordless tale begins with no title page. Our young hero prepares to don his headphones as his dog brings his leash for a walk. As he leaves the house, a speech balloon from inside says, "Don't slam the d..." Across the next double page, in large letters, is, "SLAM!" as the boy approaches a path where a runner is huffing and a woman carries a large bag of groceries. He continues across the next double page, reading, listening, and oblivious to the chaos that begins to erupt around him and continues across the pages complete with only sound effects. On the very first page, a red ball sits alone. The ball will return later. By the time we reach the first street scene, the slapstick has begun. Fresh incredible encounters include strange new characters, all naturalistic but stylized, even a fire-breathing dragon, in wild, detailed scenes. The boy's surprise at the mess around him when he finally opens his eyes and ears and wonders who did that is the final joke. Reviewer: Ken Marantz and Sylvia Marantz
    School Library Journal
    03/01/2014
    Gr 1–3—A door slams, and the story begins. Headphones securely attached, paper in hand, and totally oblivious to the perfect contagion of events happening in his wake, a youngster heads down the hill with his dog to the candy store. On the unconventional title page, a ball breaks away from its perch on the roof; on the following spreads, a cat leaps, a skateboard zooms, a truck screeches to a stop, and sea creatures fly. Workers awaken a sleeping dragon below the sidewalk, aliens fall as rockets and kites soar above, a circus bus and an ice-cream truck collide with a cacophony of onomatopoeia, highlighting each moment in the action. The boy comes out of the store, finally looks around at the mess, and wonders, "Who did that?" Each page is a busy place, an explosion of detailed pen-and-ink drawings from various perspectives and cartoon humor, with a story starter at each page turn. Follow the bouncing red ball, from the top of the hill to the subterranean depths at its bottom: a perfect example of illustrated cause and effect. This title has multiple uses for language arts curriculum tied to a fantasy-based plot. A first purchase.—Mary Elam, Learning Media Services, Plano ISD, TX
    Kirkus Reviews
    2013-12-11
    A boy slams a door. This is not late-breaking news. Unless the slam dislodges a red, rubber ball that has been stuck in the second-story gutter, which falls on the cat sleeping in the yard, that whereupon jumps on the lady's head, spilling her bag of groceries, the eggs in which splatter on the face of the gentleman out for a walk--he could use the exercise--pulling his bulldog on a skateboard behind him, which rolls off down a hill and causes the fish-delivery truck to lose its cargo of slippery, slimy things, which ruins the sewer workers' midmorning break, which rouses the dragon in the sewer, which scares the aliens, which causes the circus strongman to get three ice cream cones mashed onto his bald head. Meanwhile, the door-slammer is oblivious, walking just a step ahead of the tide of chaos, ears safely protected from the din by earphones. It is all a cumulative contagion of catastrophe, with few words to interrupt the proceedings, just an eyeful of cockamamie consequences. This story will be left up to the teller's panache, aided and abetted by Stower's crazy art happenings, strangely but effectively drawn with a palette of candy-heart colors and with teeming action on every page. Not a lullaby by any stretch, but good for a guffaw. (Picture book. 3-7)

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