Each Peach Pear Plum: Janet and Allan Ahlberg
January 12, 2011
Book: Each Peach Pear Plum
Author: Janet and Allan Ahlberg
Pages: 32
Age Range: 3-8
Each Peach Pear Plum was a recent gift to Baby Bookworm. She mainly wants to eat it, but I'm quite enjoying it. It's a deceptively simple book with a subversive slant. Each page spread has a rhyming couplet on one side, and a detailed picture on the other. The couplets all end with "I spy ...", and the idea is to spy the named character in the picture. So we have:
"Cinderella on the stairs
I spy the Three Bears"
And the Three Bears can be seen peeking in through a window, as Cinderella dusts.
The humor comes partly in the language:
"Mother Hubbard down the cellar
I spy Cinderella"
[That one cracks me up for some reason.]
But most of the humor is in the illustrations. When Jack and Jill are spied, all we see are their legs waving in the air, half-way down the hill. And then we find them in a ditch on the next page. If that doesn't make preschoolers giggle, I don't know what will. I did have a moment of fear when the Three Bears, out hunting, find the lost and helpless Baby Bunting. [Just how far will the black humor go?] But it all turns out ok.
Seriously, though, this is a very fun book to read with preschoolers. Although it's a board book with limited text, it's a bit above the interest level of babies. You'll want to share this with kids who are old enough to enjoy scouring the pictures, to find Tom Thumb and the rest. This is an excellent addition to any collection. The illustrations are wonderful, too.
Publisher: Viking Juvenile
Publication Date: 1978 (original date), 1999 (this edition)
Source of Book: A gift for Baby Bookworm from the Chang family
© 2011 by Jennifer Robinson of Jen Robinson's Book Page. All rights reserved. All Amazon links in this post are affiliate links, and may result in my receiving a small commission on purchases (with no additional cost to you).