Tomato Sandwich

By Caroline Magerl

Reviewed by Lara Cain Gray

Tomato Sandwich is the latest release from celebrated author and illustrator Caroline Magerl. It takes place on an average day in the home of young Ottily and her dad. Otilly awakes, dons her fairy dress, grabs her wand and gets ready to make magic! Dad, with vacuum cleaner and feather duster in hand, has different aims for their morning. For breakfast, Dad offers a range of the usual fare. Ottily wants a fairy cake! Dad makes her a tomato sandwich.

From here, the story revels in the contradictory expectations of adults and children about what counts as a typical day. Dad is doing his exasperated best, but Ottily slingshots the sandwich out the door and goes on her magical cupcake quest. There’s plenty of humour as well as a lovely pathos as the pair eventually come together with a shared vision.

It will come as no surprise to discover energetic and evocative illustrations in this book, as Magerl is an award winning artist – both in children’s books and galleries around the world. The art style here harkens back to Magerl’s earlier career as a cartoonist, with loose ink line drawings conjuring exaggerated physicality (note the father’s low slung pants!) and vignettes laid across each spread like a comic.

Watercolours bring pops of colour and delicious use of light and shade. All this allows for faster paced action than might normally be seen in a picture book, and boosts the appeal of using the book across all ages in a school or home setting.

But what’s really fresh here is that the book is wordless, offering a playground for creative interaction with the reader, and for exceptional visual literacy skills development. Though a primary narrative is clearly comprehensible, readers might enjoy proposing various versions of what they think is happening in the background, or what the characters’ motivations might be. Side characters like neighbours, waiters and Ottily’s faithful pooch have their own sub-narratives to explore, and much is revealed through slow or repeated reading to observe small details.

Magerl is a staunch believer in the power of creativity to develop our sense of selves, and inviting the reader to be an active part of the storymaking in this way leans into that. At many stages of the plot it would be possible to pause and reflect on what is likely to happen next – or what you wish might happen.

Teachers, especially, will find many ways to deploy this in the literacy comprehension space, working on prediction, questioning and inference, for example. It could be useful in the social and emotional awareness space, too, as the characters’ facial expressions are so telling of their wants and needs, with potential for analysis of feelings and reactions. It would also be great fun to extend the reading by creating alternative versions of the story.

Walker Books, April 2025

Lara Cain Gray is the author of the recently published The Grown-Ups Guide to Picture Books.