janet Ahlberg (21 October 1944 – 15 November 1994), née Janet Hall, and Allan Ahlberg (born 5 June 1938) were a British married couple who created many children's books, including picture books that regularly appear at the top of "most popular" lists for public libraries. They worked together for 20 years until Janet died of cancer in 1994. Allan wrote the books and Janet illustrated them. Allan Ahlberg has also written dozens of books with other illustrators.[a]
Janet Ahlberg won two Kate Greenaway Medals for illustrating their books[3][4] and the 1978 winner Each Peach Pear Plum was named one of the top ten winning works for the 50th anniversary of the Medal (1955–2005). In the US it was published by Viking Press in 1979 as Each Peach Pear Plum: an "I Spy" story; the national library catalogue summary explains, "Rhymed text and illustrations invite the reader to play 'I spy' with a variety of Mother Goose and other folklore characters.