The Amazing Jam

Following her very well-received debut The Pooka Party, Shona Shirley Macdonald’s latest picture book is a surreal, exuberant celebration of creativity, music and embracing the unexpected. It stars Grub, a cat who is also a musician. Grub likes jamming with his band and travels to concerts by flying fish. The first spread is mostly given to an illustration of Grub travelling in style on the fish, a spectacular image which immediately takes us deep into the world Macdonald has created. Taking a break from his music, Grub sees a flyer for a jam making competition and decides to enter at which point the story takes off in an unexpected direction. Singing as he makes his jam, ‘Grumbleberry, bumbleberry, fart and spice,’ and using an elaborate Heath-Robinson-type contraption for the cooking, Grub is amazed when his jams come to life, dancing in his kitchen. Despite his confidence, they don’t win the competition, but who cares? These jams can jam and that is how this fantastical tale ends, the jams, Grub and his flying fish all playing music together – round midnight from the look of the sky. It’s a heady but supremely successful mix of extraordinary machines, food, animals and magic, each page a carefully composed explosion of colour and detail. Throughout it all, Grub remains a very stable presence, his pleasure in his creativity clear to see. Readers will relish their trip into Grub’s world, and this richly imagined story will leave a real impact.