"Mirthful artwork and friendly rhymes get readers all toasty with warm, good feelings. (Picture book. 2-6)"
A baker delivers a loaf from the oven to his family's kitchen, where the bread is eaten, slice by slice, through the course of one day.
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"The frequently distributed buns aren't all that's delicious in this exhilarating suite of variations on a classic. (Pop-up/fractured fairy tale. 5-9)"
A familiar old tale is taken for a terrific spin with more bears, three pigs, assorted woodland animals, space aliens, additional young cast members (including one in a red hood) and lots and lots of sticky buns.
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Wouldn't it be remarkable if someone caught—in his hat, no less—a baby who had fallen out of a second-story window and then he ended up marrying that same baby many years later?
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"Like its classic antecedent, this may not only inspire some creative world-building in budding artists, it also gives the relationship between story and audience an additional interactive aspect. (Picture book. 6-9)"
In this distant cousin to Harold and the Purple Crayon, a pencil draws a smiling boy (previously met in Ahlberg and Ingman's Runaway Dinner, 2006) and names him "Banjo."
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"The title word's repetition creates a verbal pattern that comes out more clearly when spoken aloud, but even solitary young readers will follow the plot easily—in either direction. (Picture book. 6-8)"
Along the same lines as David LaRochelle and Richard Egielski's The End (February 2007), but using more predictable elements, Ahlberg and Ingman present a set of linked tales in rewind mode.
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"More sophisticated in structure than the classic tales and verses that inspired it, this madcap riff is for primary-grade readers—and their clever parents. (Picture book. 5-8)"
Just as a boy named Banjo is about to eat dinner, his sausage, Melvin, jumps up and runs off, accompanied by the dish, fork, knife, carrots (all girls named Caroline, Clara, etc.), peas (all boys named Peter, Percival and Paul) and so on.
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"And the trip home is accomplished with the turn of a final page—a perfect ending for a child's transformation of a common errand into a decidedly uncommon outing. (Picture book. 6-8)"
Leaving dad to paint the kitchen, a child trails her mom, little Harry and Wilf the Wonderdog out to the grocery store in this enticing invitation to take the long way 'round.
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Do not be deceived by the diminutive trim size and aloofly posed but pettable-looking feline on the cover: there's nothing warm or fuzzy about this eerie tale of a family enslaved by an adopted stray.
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"The fun does not obscure the senior Ahlberg's very serious commitment to words, and one can only hope that readers (and listeners) will take him up on his exhortation to use some good ones in stories of their own. (Picture book. 5-10)"
A wild custody battle over a pig becomes the raison d'être for Ahlberg père's latest deconstruction of the picture book.
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"The Gaskitts score a direct hit on the funny bone, and young readers will hope they haven't seen the last of this resourceful clan. (Easy fiction. 6-8)"
The Gaskitt family has an exciting morning in this tilt-a-whirl tale from the ever-innovative Ahlberg (The Adventures of Bert, p. 798, etc.). Mr. Gaskitt rises in the morning, dons three sets of socks and underwear, three shirts, two pairs of pants, four sweaters, and four coats.
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"Running jokes and surprises further animate this cheery tale, which will draw 'Young Cam Jansen' graduates like flies. (Fiction. 8-10)"
Fans of the resourceful Gaskitt family, introduced in The Man Who Wore All His Clothes (2001), will welcome this new, multi-stranded caper.
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"A cozy companion for such similar explorations of family ritual as Ezra Jack Keats's Peter's Chair (1967) and Vera Williams's 'More, More, More,' Said the Baby (1990). (Picture book. 3-5)"
Ahlberg and Tyler (Snail House, 2001) celebrate the playful games that deepen family ties; each morning brings a succession of treasure hunts, as Tilly's mother hides her breakfast banana in the kitchen, her father hides her sock rabbit in the garage—and where has the cat gone off?
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"Frances's matter of fact, plainspoken tale will leave smart readers thinking about ghosts and memories, brothers and sisters, and the timelessness of love. (Fiction. 10-12)"
Even after his death, Tom is there for his little sister and brother in this poignant ghost story.
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"The author and illustrator both keep the boundaries between the real world and that of the imagination distinct but easily bridgeable, and the children's experiences always seem more exhilarating than perilous. (Picture book. 5-8)"
This homespun tale, heard at Grandma's knee, will transport readers just as it does her young listeners.
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"It's not a bad book, but it's not on par with collections by Prelutsky, Silverstein, and Dahl, and not even up to Ahlberg's own high standards. (Anthology. 6-12)"
A haphazard collection of poems, musings, noodlings, and heavily revised fairy tales from Ahlberg (The Better Brown Stories, 1996, etc.).
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"Adults will enjoy the existential overtones and the echoes of famous plots, while young readers and listeners will delight in every chapter of this fractious escapade. (Fiction. 8-12)"
Made on an assembly line, the bear fails inspection and lands in the reject bin—a calamity that, ironically, is more difficult for him to endure since it's a result of his supercilious expression: a mouth stitch gone awry and a misplaced eye affect his character as much as they do his visage.
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The characters in these stories—two more in the Funnybones series—are mostly skeletons, which would give them high interest even without Ahlberg's inventive wit.
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