Awards

• Winner of Kate Greenaway Medal.

Overview

A poem on each page gives the clue to what is hiding in the picture opposite, so young children can follow the rhymes. 'In this book with your little eye, take a look and play I spy'.

Full Product Details

9780670882786

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Reviews

The Ahlberg penchant for playing with nursery characters (Jeremiah in the Dark Woods, 1978) has issue this time in a more traditional, pastoral-pretty nursery book. Each Peach Pear Plum/ I spy Tom Thumb, reads the first couplet (of what was originally a counting-out rhyme), while opposite Tom sits half-hidden in a tree; Tom Thumb in the cupboard/ I spy Mother Hubbard shows him in plain sight and - look sharp! - only her posterior, looming in the picture's corner. And so it goes, with a new character named - and cleverly half-concealed - at each of the openings. Youngsters will enjoy spying them out and appreciate their comical faces until at the finale - Plum Pie in the sun/ I spy. . . EVERYONE! - they all spring out from concealment and sit down to a picnic feast. Once you've seen it, true, there are no surprises but, for the very young, there's another sort of satisfaction from knowing what's coming next. (Kirkus Reviews)

Play the game of hide-and-seek with Cinderella, the Three Bears, Jack and Jill, in this cunningly devised rhyming picture book. 'Tom Thumb in the cupboard/ I spy Mother Hubbard...' Can you see her in the picture? (0 - 3 yrs) (Kirkus UK)

Author Information

In the early 1960s, Allan studied teacher training in Sunderland, where he also met Janet, his future wife. He had tackled a wide variety of jobs, ranging from postman to plumber's mate before working as a primary teacher for ten years. Janet, however, discovering that she 'couldn't do the policing job', went on to study graphic design, which led her to her vocation as an illustrator. Several years later, bored with her then current job, and desperate for a creative opening, Janet asked Allan to write a children's book for her to illustrate. Allan, having always wanted to write but being unable to find his niche, suddenly felt 'as though he was a clockwork toy and she had turned the key'. So began the career which would later lead them to become one of Britain's most successful author/illustrator teams, producing ingenious books of the highest quality. Influenced by comics and cartoons, their perfect partnership went on to produce masterpieces including PEEPO!, which reflected Allan's childhood ('I am the Peepo! baby.'), EACH PEACH PEAR PLUM and THE BABY'S CATALOGUE. These books have all become children's classics, with their 'rhythmic prose, their mix of dottiness and sentiment appealing both to young children and to the parents who read them aloud' (Louette Harding, The Daily Mail). Working together, they saw their books as more than simply the combin

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