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.
[9] 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.
[2] The first three published Ahlberg collaborations appeared in 1976 and 1977, The Old Joke Book, The Vanishment of Thomas Tull, and Burglar Bill (1977).
[3] 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.
[5] Each Peach Pear Plum finished a close second to the 1977 medalist, Dogger by Shirley Hughes; the margin was 1% of the vote.
[12] 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.
[2] According to one WorldCat library record, "A Jolly Postman delivers letters to several famous fairy-tale characters such as the Big Bad Wolf, Cinderella, and the Three Bears.
For older children, they wrote books such as Burglar Bill, Cops and Robbers, Funnybones and the Happy Families series.
[2][15] Father and daughter collaborated again, completing a movable picture book published late in 2012, The Goldilocks Variations (Walker), "a new twist in an old fairy tale".
[18] Beside the two Greenaway Medals, Janet Ahlberg was a "Commended" runner up three times, for Burglar Bill (1977), The Baby's Catalogue (1982), and The Jolly Postman (1986).
[2] A football story set in war-ravaged England, Boyhood made the Guardian Children's Fiction Prize shortlist.