Each Peach Pear Plum

Love of language and literature works best as a daisy chain, down the generations. Some of the best picture books have a similar structure, with repetition, rhyme, and rhythm as cues. This is such a book.

First, I read this to my child, pausing before pointing out the next character, who would be hiding in the picture somewhere.

Then I would read, but stop before saying the last words on each page, allowing my child to jump in with the next name.

"Each Peach Pear Plum, I spy Tom Thumb"

"Tom Thumb in the cupboard, I spy Mother Hubbard
Mother Hubbard..., I spy..."

My child learned to read the book: pretend reading (memory), then properly.

The whole book is a daisy chain of names familiar from fairy tales and nursery rhymes, creating a story show more that includes Robin Hood, Baby Bunting, the Three Bears, a Wicked Witch, and Cinderella.

This remains one of a few special books we both know off by heart, more than twenty years later.

Pass it on

Another daisy chain: it’s a book I’ve given to many friends. They usually say how much they and their child enjoy it. I hope that one day, they and their children will pass it on.

Last week, a friend I gave it to more than ten years ago, and who now lives in Australia, sent me a picture of her younger child with the book, saying her kids still love it. A simple gesture that filled me with joy, and flooded a difficult week with happy memories.

Thanksgiving life lessons

An aunty figure in my youth, had two favourite axioms:
“Send postcards to people when they are alive, not flowers when they are dead.”
and
“Great oaks from little acorns grow.”

My friend sent a virtual postcard.
And a love of reading nurtures our acorns into saplings and on to mighty oaks.

Tomorrow is Thanksgiving in the US. I am thankful for those who nurtured me, and for the privilege of nurturing others. show less

I like how this brings all the characters from all the different nursery rhymes together but in a modest and not radically revisionist way, like it's just trying to add to what's usually seen as a completed canon rather than lampoon or profane or radically overturn it. Honestly, the only reason I didn't score it higher was the part with the Three Bears out hunting and their guns almost hitting Baby Bunting and I just don't think we should be all fun and jokey about gun accidents like we're watching a tower of cans teeter in the grocery store or something.

"In this book / With your little eye / Take a look / And play "I spy." So reads the little rhyming instruction at the beginning of this delightful picture-book for younger children, which presents a series of nursery rhyme and fairy-tales characters, each of which needs to be found in the facing-page illustration. "Each Peach Pear Plum / I spy Tom Thumb," the text begins, inviting the reader to find Tom Thumb in the artwork. The subject of the previous I-spy then launches the next - ie: "Tom Thumb in the cupboard / I spy Mother Hubbard" - with the process ongoing, until the natural (and very fun!) conclusion, in which all the characters are brought together.

Chosen as one of our February selections over in The Picture-Book Club to which show more I belong, where our theme was "Fractured Nursery Rhymes," Each Peach Pear Plum is only nominally related to the world of nursery rhymes, being more of a rhyming game-book than anything else. Still, children will enjoy seeing some of the characters they know from other stories all together, and will have fun picking them out in the illustrations. Recommended to younger readers who enjoy nursery rhymes, fairy-tales, and I-spy games. show less

This is a good book of a few rhyming couplets featuring fairy tale and nursery rhyme characters, perfect length to catch the attention of a young child - and enough detail in the pictures to keep the attention of an older one!

For those people who are concerned about this sort of thing, there are some references to "the Wicked Witch" (she's not shown being any more wicked than anybody else, and she eats pie with her neighbors at the end) in the book, and there are also a few images of the three bears being very careless with guns while hunting. I don't find that this hampers our enjoyment of this book, but if these are sensitive topics for your family, you may want to check the book out of the library before committing to a purchase.

Predating J. & A. Ahlberg’s well-known works such as Peepo! (1981) or the Jolly Postman series, Each Peach Pear Plum is a wonderfully inventive picture book that invites children to play “I spy” with characters from Mother Goose rhymes and other traditional folktales. The book pairs a page of simple prose (one sentence) with a one illustrated page for the reader or listener to explore in “I spy” fashion. Cinderella, Tom Thumb, the Three Bears, Robin Hood, the Wicked Witch, and others are embedded in richly detailed scenes that contribute to a single narrative of nursery rhyme adventure and misadventure. Unlike Walter Wick’s Can You See What I See? or I Spy books, which offer readers stand-alone collages of hundreds of show more details to search and sort out, the Ahlbergs offer a playful story with familiar characters to young and aspiring “I Spy” explorers. The book is recommended for children age one to eight. show less

Pastiche Alert! This playful novel-in-verse combines a game of "I Spy", with throwbacks to various nursery rhyme and fairy tale characters that go down in literary history. Stringing together the first with the last, Janet and Allen Ahlberg create a rhyming referential chain that is paired with original illustrations. A charming book that flows with a playful rhythm full of whimsy and fanciful musings. Lovely!

Themes: I Spy, Fairy tales, nursery rhymes, pastiche, rhyme.

It’s a sweet and clever picture book that’s fun to read and look at. I enjoyed the rhyming and the “I spy” game on each page. The illustrations are cute and full of little details that make you want to stop and explore. It’s a perfect book for younger kids, and I had fun reading it too!