Sammy and the Skyscraper Sandwich

Sammy is a little boy with a huge appetite. The enterprising toddler feels like eating the biggest, tallest sandwich in the world, so he pulls out all the stops. The sandwich soon grows taller than he is, but fortunately there’s a ladder. Sammy saws holes through the ceilings and carries on stacking his sandwich. He can make it even higher by going through the skylight, and with the help of a crane he’s able to top off his creation with an olive and a sprig of parsley. And then … Sammy feels like eating a banana.

This colourful board book represents a highpoint in Pieter Gaudesaboos’ audacious career so far. His great love of the formalism of 1950s illustrations, his digital drawing technique and his childlike imagination fit together perfectly, and they are an ideal match for the simple but charming, concisely told story by Irish writer Lorraine Francis. ‘Sammy and the Skyscraper Sandwich’ is an ode to the creative fantasy of toddlers, who love to convert features of their surroundings into something quite different for a while. This is a look-and-find book full of visual discoveries that will endlessly excite the smallest of children, and indeed their parents.