Writer of books such as Each Peach Pear Plum and Peepo! capturing a child’s outlook with his illustrator wife Janet
The children’s writer Allan Ahlberg, who has died aged 87, could turn his hand to most genres, including fiction, poetry, picture books, fairy tales and comic-strip humour. He was the author of more than 150 books, including the hugely popular Each Peach Pear Plum and The Jolly Postman.
Ahlberg had been working as a primary teacher for 10 years when his wife, Janet, an artist, asked him to write a children’s story for her to illustrate. Later he described that moment as feeling as if he were a clockwork toy and “she had turned the key”. Their first book together, Here Are the Brick Street Boys, was published in 1975, and the Ahlbergs went on to become one of the most successful writer/illustrator partnerships in children’s literature.
A very close couple, they enjoyed an intimacy that also characterised their working lives. One secret of their success lay in the dynamic relationship they created between word and picture; another was their joint ability to view the world as if through the eyes of a child. They shared a gentle, quirky sense of humour that was conveyed with great warmth. When their daughter, Jessica, was born in 1980, her various stages of growing up provided further inspiration for their work. Perhaps the most memorable volume from this period was The Baby’s Catalogue (1982), a simple but brilliant idea based on the fact that babies loved spotting other babies in catalogues and magazines.
