Demolition
Sally Sutton and Brian Lovelock
Walker Books pbk
This wonderfully noisy book has energy and motion in abundance. We follow a gang of workers as they don their protective gear and set to work with their monstrous machines tearing down a derelict building so a playground can be erected in its place.
Writing largely in the imperative, Sally Sutton has created a glorious, must-join-in-with, onomatopoeic rhyming text that characterises the various machines and their roles to perfection:

The excavator’s huge jaws work in dinosaur fashion to bite and tear and slash.
Then with its basket attached it must …

Ram the walls. Ram the walls.
Bash and smash and slam.
First they wobble, then they fall.
Thud! CREAK!
WHAM!
Next comes the process of hosing and damping the dust and dirt done by the workers with hoses (I’ve never thought about this before); another spread shows stone crushing and grinding to make new concrete from the old; there is wood shredding

and chipping to create mulch from the sawdust and metal sorting. Each process has an emphasis on reusing/recycling materials (a great message to give children).
Once all the rubble has been cleared and the play equipment put in place, we are issued an invitation on the final double spread to join the fun and ‘Run and climb and play.’

Lovelock’s emphasis throughout is also on the monstrous machines, which he presents in acrylics, pencils and ink. The latter he uses to highlight details such as the rivets and other elements that contribute to the motion, and to make the various machines stand out from their spatter-wash and stipple backgrounds.
There’s a final Machine Facts page giving brief information about each of the performers and their add-ons; and the end papers are appropriately rubbly.
This book is the perfect thing for an active story session with a group of preschoolers. After an initial reading children themselves can use their bodies to become the machines, swinging those wrecking balls, thumping, smashing and whacking, then biting tearing and slashing (how will they create those jaws?) ramming, bashing and slamming; whishing, splishing and squirting those hoses and more.
Then there are the noises to create – what might they use to make the various sounds in addition to or instead of, their voices. In fact you might read the story and have the children add sound effects.
A must buy for any early years setting and for machine-loving individuals.
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