One of the most enjoyable aspects of any Mo Willems book, aside from the funny story he's dreamt of and illustrated to great effect, is finding his ubiquitous pigeon character in each of his books- it may be adorning a character's shirt or doing its best to blend in among a half dozen chocolate chip cookies in a jar.
It is this story-within-a-story, running-inside-joke theme in mind that has inspired tonight's post.
Each Peach Pear Plum, written and illustrated by husband and wife team Allen and Janet Ahlberg, was the first such book I encountered with my daughter when she was wee and only getting acquainted with well-known nursery rhyme characters such as Mother Hubbard and Baby Bunting. The rhyming verse transports the reader to a fairy tale land where familiar characters' stories are woven together and illustrated with great
ahem aplumb.
Along these lines, Alison Lester's delightful
The Journey Home tells the tale of an intrepid, imaginative brother and sister due who travel across many varied fairy tale lands encountering many familiar characters-pirates, mermaids, gypsies until they finally arrive home again, home again, jiggety jig.
Charlie Cook's Favorite Book by author/illustrator dream team Julia Donaldson and Axel Scheffler (the great minds behind
Room on the Broom,
The Gruffalo, and
The Snail and the Whale to name just a few other brilliant collaborations of theirs to check out) takes the story-within-a-story a step further. Each character mentioned in
Charlie Cook- a wonderfully illustrated, truly enchanting story- has a favorite book featuring yet another character with their own storyline and favorite book which features yet another character and so on and so, delightfully, forth.
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