This is an engaging and interactive book for the very young. Familiar nursery-rhyme characters, such as Mother Hubbard and Baby Bunting, sneak their way into the gentle drawings. Even young children who might not know all the fairy-tale stars can find them lurking in the cupboard, on the stairs or deep in the woods.

Janet Ahlberg was born in 1944 and spent her childhood years in Leicester. She went to Sunderland to train to be a teacher. Allan Ahlberg had enrolled on the same course.

They married in 1969. Janet decided against teaching as a career and turned instead to graphic design. While Allan worked full time as a teacher, Janet's first work was published. She began urging Allan to write a text for her to illustrate. Hard though it is to believe, their submissions to publishers were met with rejection slips. Then, in one week, Penguin took The Old Joke Book, A & C Black took The Vanishment of Thomas Tull and Heinemann took Burglar Bill. The Ahlbergs had arrived and there would be no looking back.

By the 1980s, the Ahlbergs were big news, not just in Britain but all around the world. Their books were translated into twenty-one languages.

Sadly Janet died prematurely in 1994 and Allan who now lives in London has continued to work, recently producing his beautiful tribute to her, JANET'S LAST BOOK, and continues to create wonderful books for children of all ages.