The Giant Jam Sandwich

Story and pictures by John Vernon Lord

with verses by Janet Burroway
My favorite book from childhood is The Giant Jam Sandwich. It's basically about a town that gets infested with 4 million wasps and they had to come up with a plan to get rid of them. Those smart residents of Itching Down decided to bake a gigantic loaf of bread in a brick building-they're a resourceful bunch-I tell ya! Then they sliced it and lured the wasps in with strawberry jam and trapped those buggers with another slice of bread on top. Ingenious! And you wonder what happened to the wasps inside that bread? Well, the birds flew off with it in their beaks and had a feast for a hundred weeks, of course!

I did not own this book as a child, I just read it every time we went to the dentist's office. I always remembered the story, but didn't know what it was called or anything. Well-I was telling my sister about this and soon after a teacher at the school she worked at was telling her too about her favorite book and it was called The Giant Jam Sandwich. So as a surprise, my sister ordered me one from the wonderful online store that is AMAZON! (This is before I had a computer and thought the only way you could buy a book was if you saw it in a book store.) I am so thrilled to own this book! Thanks Jodie!

Here's a cute idea that my sister came up with. She was a kindergarten aide at one time and she read the kids this book and afterwards she served them bread with butter and seedless strawberry jam. I guess they really loved it. Cool idea, I think!