From: MShuttleworth at slv.vic.gov.au <MShuttleworth>
Date: Tue, 8 Nov 2005 10:24:32 +1100

I wasn't aware that the Ahlbergs Peepo underwent translation for American readers. I wonder how it would read as Peek-a-boo. As a parent we read and read and read this and I still love it. This book is worth a thesis alone. Why? I think it teaches children (and their parents) to look. It guides the eye, teaches to make connections within scenes and across pages.

There are so many dynamics at work: The immediate family ("she wants him on her knee") the way dad's clothes are casually hooked upon the end of the bed, the adventures in the park and the presence of both mother and grandma...the tassles blowing in the breeze. The historical setting lends a quiet memoir-esque quality and an authenticity that you can't find in their metafictional stories (Jolly Postman, etc) When I look at Bob Graham's books (Let's Get A Pup, Red Woollen Blanket, etc I see the same rumpled charm that permeates Peepo. It wears its cleverness, its genius, on the inside if you like.

The text is easy and unforced. It has the same comfortable, rounded slightly worn feel that the pictures have.


But what caps it for me is the final scene at the top of the stairs. We are looking at the mirror, its rainbow rim, and the mirror (or the family including the baby) are looking back at the reader. It's the detail that makes me love it. Peepo is seamless and brilliant. I don't think the Ahlbergs did a better book.




Mike Shuttleworth Program Co-ordinator Centre for Youth Literature 328 Swanston Street Melbourne VIC 3000 PH: 03 8664 7262 FAX: 03 9639 4143 http://www.slv.vic.gov.au/youthlit/
Received on Mon 07 Nov 2005 05:24:32 PM CST