A BELOVED children’s author who wrote over 150 books has died aged 87.
Allan Ahlberg produced a host of bestselling nursery classics during a stellar career as an author.
Belinda Ioni Rasmussen, CEO of Walker Books Group, which published some of his books, said: “He was enormously playful in spirit and language and had the ability to make you smile in one sentence.
“Allan inspired generations of children’s writers, inspired all of us who worked with him, and inspired artists to make some of their very best work.”
He came to writing in his late thirties, when his wife Janet grew tired of illustrating non-fiction and asked him to write a story for her to illustrate.
At the time he said it was “like a key turning in his back”.
The Ahlbergs went on to produce 37 books together, and Allan also wrote more than 100 others, some in Janet’s lifetime, and some since her death from breast cancer in 1994.
Their collaborations included such lasting favourites for the very young as Peepo!, The Baby’s Catalogue and Each Peach Pear Plum.
Following Janet’s death Allan worked with illustrators such asRaymond Briggsand Bruce Ingman.
His career came full circle in a series of collaborations with his daughter Jessica including Half a Pig and a pop-up set of anarchic variations on the tale of Goldilocks.
