Pie-making, Meet Intertextuality

Back in May, there was a hard freeze hereabouts way later than there should have been. Many, many peach blossoms never got to turn into peaches. Which means that now, in August, the few peaches that survived are being fought over at the farmer's market with a passion inflamed by the 100 degree heat. I of course succumbed to this passion and bought many more peaches than I should have, though many fewer than I really wanted. (Who wouldn't lust after a bushel box of Missouri peaches?) Which means that now, this week, I have some extremely ripe peaches which, despite everyone's best efforts, are not going to get eaten out of hand. Which means that I have to make many, many pies.

Which means, of course, that we are reading Each Peach Pear Plum, a Janet and Allan Ahlberg classic that centers around a large pie of mysterious origins left in the middle of an orchard for all to enjoy. This book is to me the best example of the signature Ahlbergian nursery rhyme/fairy tale mash-up universe, mainly because of its simplicity--it's especially good for the 0-2 age span. Sure, The Jolly Postman has gimmicks, namely, actual letters from, say, the Three Little Pigs's lawyer to the Wolf that you can take out of actual envelopes and read and then put back (or rip up and put in your mouth, depending on your age.) And Jeremiah in the Dark Woods, concerning a boy's hunt for the thief who stole his grandmother's tarts (the robber turns out to be that exemplar of white privilege, Goldilocks), has the virtue of being long enough to keep a four-year-old occupied during almost all of an afternoon's monsoon. (I know this for an actual fact.)

But Each Peach Pear Plum is better than these. It is partly an "I Spy" book, which is particularly enjoyable when the illustrations are good, as these are, and partly a fantasy about what would happen if all your favorite characters--Tom Thumb, Mother Hubbard, Cinderella, The Three Bears, Jack and Jill, The Wicked Witch, Baby Bunting, Bo-Peep and Robin Hood--got together and shared some plum pie. I also like that though Baby Bear is ill-advisedly allowed to carry a gun throughout the entire book, which he repeatedly fires accidentally at people and things, no one holds it against him; likewise, no one minds that the Wicked Witch joins in the picnic too even though she's spent the whole book skulking around in the bushes and scaring poor Jack and Jill.

I am in general a big fan of Allan Ahlberg's dark and surrealist humor (see The Man Who Wore All his Clothes and The Runaway Dinner) though it's often very hard to explain when 4 year olds ask follow-up questions. Each Peach Pear Plum has just the teeniest taste of this sensibility, and it is all the better for it. Especially when you follow it up with a nice big slice of last of the season peach pie.