Each Peach Pear Plum by Janet Ahlberg, Allan Ahlberg (Paperback, 2008) Pocket-Sized

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Next the Wicked Witch is flying over the wood on her broomstick and she spies Robin Hood which is quite easy for her to do for he has fired an arrow at her! It can be read to the whole class and followed by setting smaller group tasks and/or individual activities, using words, text and recognisable characters that feature in the book. The story opens with a cozy watercolor of a pie, fresh-out-of-the oven, and a mouse, reading to dig into the delicious pastry. Born as Janet Hall in Yorkshire in 1944, she studied at Sunderland Technical College, where she met Ahlberg.

Allan and Ahlberg’s text is repetitious, rhyming, and predictable, making it a perfect choice for the emergent reader. My kids didn't even know many of the original nursery rhymes but it didn't deter them from enjoying this book. The whole book is a daisy chain of names familiar from fairy tales and nursery rhymes, creating a story that includes Robin Hood, Baby Bunting, the Three Bears, a Wicked Witch, and Cinderella. It’s a marvellous way to introduce your child to different characters and of course to introduce them to the game of eye spy - a central feature to the book. Simple, rhythmic words and endlessly engaging illustrations to play with in this best all I Spy books.the bearlet shot him out of a tree and he landed in a river, but they fished him out and all's well that ends well? The ditch in which Jack and Jill lie – and into which the Wicked Witch is peering, is surely modelled on the Berlin Wall, while in the very next picture, Robin Hood is shown firing long-range missiles at the Witch. In Each Peach Pear Plum, Allan Ahlberg explores the darkest realms of fantasy, describing in ultra-minimalist style the dichotomy between good and evil. Beautiful vignettes roll exquisitely across village, vale and wood through the Ahlberg’s perfect balance between image and verse. Wonderful little story, a true classic but I do find that the quality of the cardboard has somehow gone down hill and don’t really see it surviving too many reads.

Both Allan and Janet seem, for me, eponymously associated with a very English childhood and a sense of warmth and security that I am not sure anyone else has managed since. Classic characters like Burglar Bill and The Jolly Postman have become firm favourites with a generation of children who are now reading them to their own offspring. Allan’s repetitive text wastes no words; this is espionage literature with the gripping narrative of Forsyth and Ludlum, written with sinister style of Le Carré and Greene. The two married in 1969, and began to work together, publishing their first co-venture - The Old Joke Book - in 1976.

This is an absolute classic, and I'd be surprised if there's anyone in English-speaking countries, at least, who hasn't heard of it, read it and loved it. Aimed at a younger audience (I bought it for a friend's daughter but thought I would read it and play it first) it should probably be simple for an adult like myself.