The Runaway Dinner

The Runaway Dinner
By Allan Ahlberg, Illustrated by Bruce Ingman
Candlewick Press, 2006

I have picked up Allan Ahlberg's books over the years; "Peepo" and the "Bert" books, but I didn't really appreciate his work until we read "The Runaway Dinner." It's about a boy, Banjo Cannon, whose regular dinner of sausages decides it doesn't want to get eaten and runs away. A hilarious chase around the neighbourhood and through the park ensues, with Banjo's dinner running into all kinds of danger and fun.

I love Ahlberg's narrative style of talking to the reader as if he's sitting at the table with them, recounting a story and inviting them to participate with questions like, "Full of such fun, don't you agree?" Each turn of the page draws us further into the adventure with the mischievous sausage in the lead. The text often becomes part of the illustrations and is perfectly placed on the page. I read the book once and we recognized a winner. I immediately read it again, more slowly the second time, savouring all the details and adapted my read-aloud voice to better fit the writing style. It got funnier the more we read it!

Allan Ahlberg was adopted by a working class family in The Black Country (in the Midlands of England) and dreamt of becoming a writer. It wasn't until he married Janet, an illustrator, and she asked him to write her a story, that he actually put pen to paper and began his writing career! Janet and Allan Ahlberg worked together for 20 years until Janet passed away from breast cancer at the age of 50. One of their most popular books, "The Jolly Postman" published in 1986, sold over 6 million copies. It was filled with envelopes and "real" letters to and from various fairy tale characters, delivered by the jolly postman.

We just read "Half a Pig" which was illustrated by Allan and Janet's daughter, Jessica Ahlberg and enjoyed it very much. Another humorous chase story involving a great cast of characters, including kid heroes, bad guys, a divorcee and a pig.

I am now an official Allan Ahlberg fan and have 7 more of his books on hold at our library. Check out a Guardian interview with Ahlberg here.

Alliteration Challenge

I haven't been keeping up with my alliteration stories on a regular basis. Life got busy and I am now getting back on track to making time for writing regularly.
Here's one that I gave as a Birthday card to my musician husband:

Tony's Telecaster

Tony, the resident technophile, felt his toil was tedious, his talents wasted. "I'd rather live in a tee-pee tie-dying and tinkering with my telecaster." His apprentice, a teeny bopper technophobe, agreed and told Tony to telegraph his intentions via telepathy to his techno-geek friends. Telepathic communication proved more traumatic than Tony or his teeny bopper trainee had anticipated. A tiring game of telephone tag ensued.
Tony teethed his way through tee-pee building but was too tired to tie-dye. While his friends, Tiana and Marco Tiente, watched a re-run of their favourite telenova, Tony tried tuning his telecaster. Soon, temporal tunes tasting of rich melody floated untethered across the tee-pee.
"You have a terrific termperament," his friends told him. "Perfect for life in a tent."

© 2011, Sonya Wilson, all rights reserved

Farley Follows His Nose

When I saw the book, "Farley Follows His Nose" by Lynn Johnston and Beth Cruikshank, the illustrations brought back memories of  reading the For Better Or For Worse comics that appeared in the weekly  paper.  The Patterson family is back in a full colour picture book with Farley stealing the show! Farley loves eating and his nose leads him on an adventure around the neighbourhood that had my kids and I laughing out loud. Lynn Johnston gives us a gem of a book that is filled with warm humour and is a great family read.

Look for the second Farley adventure available on June 21, 2011!

A portion of the royalties received from the sale of the books benefit the the Farley Foundation, helping pets in need.

Farley Follows His Nose
The Bowen Press, An Imprint of Harper-Collins Publishers
2009