AILSA CHANG, HOST:
Bestselling children's writer Allan Ahlberg died last week at age 87. Ahlberg wrote more than 150 children's books, many of them illustrated by his wife Janet, like "Each Peach Pear Plum" and "The Jolly Postman." Janet died of breast cancer back in 1994. Their books were known for their playfulness and their humor, and NPR's Elizabeth Blair has this appreciation.
ELIZABETH BLAIR, BYLINE: Before he became a full-time writer, Allan Ahlberg was a teacher, a postman, a plumber's assistant and a gravedigger. And those experiences informed his work. Here he is from a recording made for The Children's Poetry Archive.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
ALLAN AHLBERG: I used to be a schoolteacher, and this one shows me in my classroom at the end of the day getting rather ragged, as you will hear.
BLAIR: Ahlberg's poem is about several missing pairs of scissors.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
AHLBERG: (Reading) We really need those scissors. That's what makes me mad. If it were seven pairs of children we'd lost, it wouldn't be so bad.
BLAIR: Ahlberg's stories often include characters from famous fairy tales like "Cinderella" and the "Big Bad Wolf."
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
AHLBERG: (Reading) Good morning, three bears, beamed the jolly postman popping his head round the door. I've got a letter for you this morning.
BLAIR: "The Jolly Postman" books were interactive, with tiny envelopes with letters inside and postcards that readers could pull out. In 1987, reviewer Chris Powling wrote, as a matching of word and image, it's a virtuoso performance. As a feat of design, it's without a flaw.
Allan Ahlberg was born in 1938 and raised by his adoptive parents in a working-class industrial area of England known as the Black Country. He met his wife and illustrator Janet at a teacher training college. Their book, "Peepo!," published in 1981, is the day in the life of a baby, which Ahlberg has said is based on himself.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
AHLBERG: (Reading) He sees his father sleeping in the big brass bed, and his mother, too, with a hairnet on her head. He sees the shadows moving on the bedroom wall and the sun at the window and his Teddy and his ball.
BLAIR: Allan Ahlberg is survived by his wife Vanessa, two stepdaughters and his daughter Jessica, with whom he created a pop-up version of "Goldilocks."
Elizabeth Blair, NPR News. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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