It made innovative use of envelopes to include letters, cards, games and a tiny book.

Probably their greatest success was The Jolly Postman, published by Heinemann in 1986 Allan Ahlberg told The Guardian in 2006 that it had sold over six million copies. Each Peach Pear Plum finished a close second to the 1977 medalist, Dogger by Shirley Hughes the margin was 1% of the vote.

For the 50th anniversary of the Medal, a 2007 panel named it one of the top ten winning works, which composed the ballot for a public election of the nation's favourite.

For Each Peach Pear Plum (Kestrel), Janet won the 1978 Kate Greenaway Medal from the British Library Association, recognising the year's best children's book illustration by a British subject. Vanishment was bound in hardcover with a dust jacket, while many of their early works were 'pictorial laminated boards'. The first three published Ahlberg collaborations appeared in 19, The Old Joke Book, The Vanishment of Thomas Tull, and Burglar Bill (1977). Their joint work began when she asked him, a primary school teacher, to write a story. Also provides a place to paste photographs.' Janet illustrated My Growing Up Book by Bernard Garfinkel (New York: Platt & Munk, 1972), which the US Library of Congress calls 'A child's record of the things he has learned and done from the time of birth through age five. The Ahlbergs both trained as teachers at Sunderland Technical College, where they met during the 1960s and married in 1969. Janet Hall was born 21 October 1944 in Yorkshire and brought up in Leicester. He grew up with 'no books and not much conversation'. He has called it 'a very poor working-class family' and identified himself as the baby in Peepo! (1981). An illegitimate child, he was adopted and brought up in Oldbury, in Sandwell in the West Midlands. In the US it was published by Viking Press in 1979 as Each Peach Pear Plum: an 'I Spy' story the national library catalogue summary explains, 'Rhymed text and illustrations invite the reader to play ' I spy' with a variety of Mother Goose and other folklore characters.' Biography Īllan Ahlberg was born 5 June 1938 in Croydon. Janet Ahlberg won two Kate Greenaway Medals for illustrating their books and the 1978 winner Each Peach Pear Plum was named one of the top ten winning works for the 50th anniversary of the Medal (1955–2005). Allan Ahlberg has also written dozens of books with other illustrators. He wrote the books and she illustrated them. They worked together for 20 years until Janet's death from cancer in 1994. Janet Ahlberg (21 October 1944 – 15 November 1994 née Hall) and Allan Ahlberg (born 5 June 1938) were a British married couple who created many children's books, including picture books that regularly appear at the top of 'most popular' lists for public libraries.

Each peach pear and plum