Most Popular Books by Allan Ahlberg

First published in 1985, in three sections: a bear has a noisy birthday party; a little man has a big hat; and a door is opened to a monstrous surprise.

Mr. Buzz, his family, and all the neighbors chase a swarm of uncooperative bees through the countryside.

Janet and Allan Ahlberg''s classic picture book, The Baby''s Catalogue The bestselling picture book The Baby''s Catalogue by the iconic British husband and wife picture book team Janet and Allan Ahlberg, creators of Peepo!, is filled with easily recognizable objects - perfect for your baby or toddler! Mums and Dads, breakfasts and bedtimes, pets and toys and prams and swings - and lots and lots of other fascinating things! Allan Ahlberg has published over 100 children''s books and with his late wife Janet, created many award-winning children''s picture books. The Baby''s Catalogue was inspired by their daughter, Jessica. The Ahlbergs'' books are nursery bookshelf standards and have been the recipient of worldwide acclaim and awards, including the Kate Greenaway Medal. Look out for these other classics by Allan Ahlberg: Burglar Bill; Cops and Robbers; Each Peach Pear Plum; The One and Only Two Heads; Son of a Gun; The Little Worm Book; Two Wheels Two Heads; Funny Bones; A Pair of Sinners; Happy Families; Peepo!; The Ha Ha Bonk Book; Help Your Child to Read; Ten in a Bed; Please mrs Butler; Daisy Chains; Yum Yum; Playmates; Foldaways; Woof; The Cinderella Show; The Jolly Postman; The Jolly Christmas Postman; The Jolly Pocket Postman; The Clothes Horse and Other Stories; The Mighty Slide; Starting School; Heard it in the Playground; The Bear Nobody Wanted; It was a Dark and Stormy Night; The Giant Baby; Baby Sleeps; Blue Buggy; Doll and Teddy; See the Rabbit; Please Mrs Butler; The Better Brown Stories; The Boyhood of Burglar Bill

Whenever a plumber is needed in the town, people call for Mrs Plug. And wherever she goes, Mr Plug and the baby Plugs go too. Then one night she uses her plumbing tools to save a rich man from a robber and the family end up setting sail on their biggest plumbing adventure ever!Based on the classic ''Happy Families'' card game, this highly entertaining series is ideal for reading and sharing at home or at school. It is guided by the Education Adviser, Brian Thompson, and written by the award-winning author, Allan Ahlberg.''The best thing to happen to beginner readers since Dr Seuss'' Children''s Rights Workshop.

Unhappy with the stories that are shaping their lives, the members of the Brown family go to see the writer responsible.

Mrs Vole the Vet has one son, two daughters, three cats, four dogs and no husband. Really, she has everything she needs and she works very hard - no job is too big, too small or too high - but her children think that what she really needs is a boyfriend!

A father tells four stories about a pig, a cat, a horse and a cow.

From first day nerves to finding your peg, this reassuring read is full of humour and fun for children and parents alike. A classic picture book which offers advice and enjoyment for the whole family before school starts.

Once more the Jolly Postman rides - and flies - and shrinks! The Jolly Postman is setting off on his third adventure. . . but nothing goes quite to plan when he suffers a bump to the head, and shrinks to the size of a postage stamp! And from then it just gets curiouser and curiouser. . . Featuring a whole host of familiar characters and of course, beautiful pull-out letters and a magnifying glass, The Jolly Pocket Postman is the third story in the bestselling and award-winning series by Janet and Alan Ahlberg.

As Mr. Gaskitt takes a series of jobs and Mrs. Gaskitt keeps winning prizes, their nine-year-old twins, Gus and Gloria, follow a substitute teacher who seems too good to be true.

Illustrated by Joe Wright

Dinosaur Dreams is one of the titles in Allan Ahlberg''s iconic children''s picture book series about skeletons, Funnybones. Despite being set in a dark dark house, this brightly coloured book is perfect for early readers! The big skeleton and the little skeleton are being chased by dinosaurs . . . in their dreams! Luckily dogs can dream too - and save the day. ''There can be few families in the British Isles who do not possess at least one well-thumbed Ahlberg'' - Independent on Sunday Allan Ahlberg has published over 100 children''s books and with his late wife Janet, created such award-winning children''s picture books, including Peepo!, Each Peach Pear Plum and the Kate Greenaway Medal winning The Jolly Postman. Other titles in the Funnybones series include Funnybones, Mystery Tour, The Ghost Train, The Pet Shop, Bumps in the Night, The Black Cat, Skeleton Crew, Give the Dog a Bone and A Brilliant Bone Rattling Collection, all of which are available from Puffin.

Catching a baby in his hat sets off a series of adventures for a young nineteenth-century English boy as he becomes a sea captain and finds a surprising mate.

The Bucket by Allan Ahlberg - the enthralling childhood story one of Britain''s best-loved children''s authors ''My mother, who was not my mother, I see her now, her raw red cleaner''s hands twisting away at her apron as she struggled to speak. Adoption was a shameful business then in many people''s eyes, the babies being mostly illegitimate. Better not speak of it.'' Allan Ahlberg was adopted as a baby. In 1938 he was picked up in London by his new mother and taken back to Oldbury in the Black Country. Now one of the most successful children''s book writers in the world, in The Bucket he describes an oddly enchanted childhood lived out in an industrial town during the 1940s, in conditions which today we might describe as ''deprived''. He writes of a father in overalls smelling of wood shavings and oil, of a tough and fiercely protective mother who cries when he discovers that he is adopted, of life assurance policies (''£6 if the child dies under age 3'') and fearsome bacon slicers, of half-remembered trips to his mother''s sister''s grave and to the bluebell woods. And of his first days at school: ''Allan could do much better. He is most inattentive and dreamy at times'' (school report, December 1946). Using a mix of prose and poetry, supported by new drawings by his daughter Jessica and old photographs, The Bucket retrieves a childhood which lovers of Ahlberg''s classic picturebooks The Baby''s Catalogue, Burglar Bill and Peepo! might feel they have glimpsed before but which are now exquisitely brought to life. This beautiful, exquisitely designed book, which will also appeal to fans of Gervase Phinn, Alan Bennett, Roald Dahl and Nigel Slater''s Toast, will be loved by generations of Ahlberg fans. ''Allan Ahlberg has a string of children''s classics to his name'' Nicolette Jones, Guardian Born in Croydon but brought up by his adopted parents in the Black Country town of Oldbury, Allan Ahlberg held jobs as a gravedigger, postman and plumber''s mate before becoming a teacher. He taught for ten years before collaborating with his wife Janet on a series of much-loved, now classic children''s picture books including Peepo!, Burglar Bill, Cops and Robbers, Each Peach Pear Plum, Woof!, Heard it in the Playground, Please Mrs Butler, The Boyhood of Burglar Bill, The Pencil, Friendly Matches, The Improbable Cat, Goldilocks, My Brother''s Ghost, The Mighty Slide, Collected Poems, The Boy, the Wolf, the Sheep and the Lettuce and The Ha Ha Bonk Book.

First published in 1985, in three sections: there is a big, fat frog to meet, a whole sum of boys is to be added up, and someone gets a jumbo-sized leg-up.

Sick of socks and sheets and undershirts, the Lathers decide that in future they will wash anything except laundry.

In six brief, whimsical stories, the acclaimed team of Janet and Allan Ahlberg shows what happens when everyday expressions are taken literally. A giant collects a pot of boys named Jack in--what else?--"The Jack Pot". And what is a "Clothes Horse?"--a horse made of clothing, of course! Full-color illustrations throughout.

Bumps in the Night is one of the titles in Allan Ahlberg''s iconic children''s picture book series about skeletons, Funnybones. Despite being set in a dark dark house, this brightly coloured book is perfect for early readers! No matter where they are, the two skeletons keep going bump in the night - clonk! There''s only one thing to do: "Send for Doctor Bones!" ''There can be few families in the British Isles who do not possess at least one well-thumbed Ahlberg'' - Independent on Sunday Allan Ahlberg has published over 100 children''s books and with his late wife Janet, created such award-winning children''s picture books, including Peepo!, Each Peach Pear Plum and the Kate Greenaway Medal winning The Jolly Postman. Other titles in the Funnybones series include Funnybones, Mystery Tour, The Ghost Train, The Pet Shop, The Black Cat, Dinosaur Dreams, Skeleton Crew, Give the Dog a Bone and A Brilliant Bone Rattling Collection, all of which are available from Puffin.

Jam-packed with brilliant jokes to tell your Mum, your Dad, your dog or even your teacher!

It''s Christmas Eve and the JOLLY POSTMAN is delivering greetings to various fairy-tale characters - there''s a card for Baby Bear, a game appropriately called ''Beware'' for Red Riding Hood from Mr Wolf, a get-well jigsaw for hospitalised Humpty Dumpty and three more surprise envelopes containing letters, cards, etc. Everyone''s favourite postman keeps on peddling his bicycle up hill and down dale . . . and into everybody''s hearts.

Labelled pictures introduce vocabulary and such concepts as cause and effect, opposites, and parts of a whole.

Imagine getting so very, very small that you could leave your house by a crack under the door and live, for a while, in your very own, private snail house. Imagine a tigerish bird, raindrops like sacks of water, an apple the size of a huge bomb. Imagine the adventures you might have... Now picture yourself on the verandah one warm summer''s evening, with Michael, Hannah and the baby, as Grandma begins her story...

Coronation Year, 1953, and in Oldbury a Coronation football competition is organized. The boys from the bottom pitch get a team up, but there''s no chance they''ll win, of course. They''re just the odds and sods – one of them is even a girl – but they''re all football crazy and ready and eager to beat off the opposition. A funny and moving story of football and friendship in a world when the streets were full of kids and empty of cars. Not only for boys – and girls – of 9+, there''s a real pull of nostalgia for adults as well. And, of course, for all lovers of football, whether on the pitch or in the park.

Mr. Tick is the teacher in a tiny school with only six pupils--his own children--which suits everyone perfectly until he learns that an inspector is coming who plans to close the school if it does not have more students.

The easy reader with col. illus. about a cheery train driver. 6 yrs+

Nursey rhyme story book about a baby playing peek- a - boo with his family.

In a dark dark street There is a dark dark house . . . In this FUNNYBONES story, the big skeleton and the little skeleton are fed up with the dog skeleton and decide to swap him at the pet shop. They start off with a goldfish but soon get tired of him and swap him for a parrot - but soon they get bored of him too . . . Eventually the pet shop owner gives them a box to take home with a surprise pet inside. What do you think it will be?

Henry and Henrietta Hay are embarrassed because their circus performer parents, in contrast to other mothers and fathers, go everywhere happily wearing their horse suit.

Take one clever little monkey with a key to his cage and what do you get? A day of madcap mischief as he scales a giraffe''s neck to escape the zoo and bursts into the bustling world beyond the gates--where people do the most interesting things! Full color.

Jeremiah lives in the Dark Woods with his grandma, who is brave enough to fight off crocodiles with her bare hands and her handbag. But her legs aren''t so good, so when her jam tarts are stolen she sends Jeremiah into the woods to find the culprit.

Simple text and illustrations demonstrate in brief vignettes such concepts as cause and effect, adding, parts of a whole, opposites, and the meaning of words.