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The Bucket
The Bucket by Allan Ahlberg - the enthralling childhood story one of Britain's best-loved children's authors 'My mother, who was not my mother, I see her now, her raw red cleaner's hands twisting away at her apron as she struggled to speak. Adoption was a shameful business then in many people's eyes, the babies being mostly illegitimate. Better not speak of it.' Allan Ahlberg was adopted as a baby. In 1938 he was picked up in London by his new mother and taken back to Oldbury in the Black Country. Now one of the most successful children's book writers in the world, in The Bucket he describes an oddly enchanted childhood lived out in an industrial town during the 1940s, in conditions which today we might describe as 'deprived'. He writes of a father in overalls smelling of wood shavings and oil, of a tough and fiercely protective mother who cries when he discovers that he is adopted, of life assurance policies ('£6 if the child dies under age 3') and fearsome bacon slicers, of half-remembered trips to his mother's sister's grave and to the bluebell woods. And of his first days at school: 'Allan could do much better. He is most inattentive and dreamy at times' (school report, December 1946). Using a mix of prose and poetry, supported by new drawings by his daughter Jessica and old photographs, The Bucket retrieves a childhood which lovers of Ahlberg's classic picturebooks The Baby's Catalogue, Burglar Bill and Peepo! might feel they have glimpsed before but which are now exquisitely brought to life. This beautiful, exquisitely designed book, which will also appeal to fans of Gervase Phinn, Alan Bennett, Roald Dahl and Nigel Slater's Toast, will be loved by generations of Ahlberg fans. 'Allan Ahlberg has a string of children's classics to his name' Nicolette Jones, Guardian Born in Croydon but brought up by his adopted parents in the Black Country town of Oldbury, Allan Ahlberg held jobs as a gravedigger, postman and plumber's mate before becoming a teacher. He taught for ten years before collaborating with his wife Janet on a series of much-loved, now classic children's picture books including Peepo!, Burglar Bill, Cops and Robbers, Each Peach Pear Plum, Woof!, Heard it in the Playground, Please Mrs Butler, The Boyhood of Burglar Bill, The Pencil, Friendly Matches, The Improbable Cat, Goldilocks, My Brother's Ghost, The Mighty Slide, Collected Poems, The Boy, the Wolf, the Sheep and the Lettuce and The Ha Ha Bonk Book.
144 pages, Hardcover
First published September 5, 2013
About the author
Allan Ahlberg
296 books179 followersAllan Ahlberg was one of the UK's most acclaimed and successful authors of children's books - including the best-selling Jolly Postman series. Born in Croydon in 1938, he was educated at Sunderland Technical College. Although he dreamed of becoming a writer since the age of twelve, his route to that goal was somewhat circuitous. Other jobs along the way included postman (not an especially jolly one, he recalls), gravedigger, plumber, and teacher.
Ahlberg wrote his first book when he was thirty-seven, after a decade of teaching - a profession that he maintains is "much harder" than being a writer. He says that if he hadn't become a writer, he would have loved to be a soccer player. He was married for many years to fellow children's author Janet Ahlberg, with whom he often worked. Their daughter, Jessica Ahlberg, is also a children's author.
Ahlberg wrote his first book when he was thirty-seven, after a decade of teaching - a profession that he maintains is "much harder" than being a writer. He says that if he hadn't become a writer, he would have loved to be a soccer player. He was married for many years to fellow children's author Janet Ahlberg, with whom he often worked. Their daughter, Jessica Ahlberg, is also a children's author.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 32 reviews
May 16, 2021
A nice collection of random childhood memories. Some I loved and some weren’t very interesting to me. I loved the description of how his mother picked him up upon adopting him, it seemed very straightforward in those days. I was fascinated about how he came to his adoptive parents but then it went on to much more mundane events. I enjoyed the Christmas memories.
August 16, 2014
This is a copy of a post on my blog : http://ruthi56.wordpress.com/2014/08/...
Followers might recall that in my second post on this blog I said I would write about Allan Ahlberg’s autobiographical book “The Bucket, Memories of an Inattentive Childhood” (by the way, I have a first blog post, which no one seems to be looking at: here). My local library has now come up with the goods, and I have read this slim volume, not so much an autobiography as a collection of sketches, poems and memories from Allan Ahlberg, with illustrations mostly taken from his other books.
Ahlberg was born in London in 1938, adopted by a couple who lived in the West Midlands (Worcestershire then), and brought home by his new mum on the train to smoky Oldbury to meet his new dad, who was working on that day, as on every other. They paid the solicitor £2:15:1. In itself, this is a history to reflect on. When Allan was told by a spiteful girl that his mum was not his real mum he confronted this strongest of strong women, capable of intimidating larger neighbours who dared chastise her child (“My kids…Hit your own.”), and she was reduced to tears, ‘her raw red cleaner’s hands twisting away at her apron as she struggled to speak’. But this isn’t a misery memoir. Ahlberg only touches on the sensitive nerve of his adoption as an aside in his account of the harem-scarem of a 1940s working class boyhood in which he, and all his peers, ran pretty wild (but with their own traditions of conformity) through the streets of Oldbury and Smethwick, protected from the sky by its smothering of antiseptic smog. This medical tang still hangs over Oldbury when the air is still. In those days, we learn, it came from British Industrial Plastics, Guest, Kean and Nettlefold, Danks, Chance and Hunt, Accles and Pollock, Brades – names in some cases living on in the street names of the area.
To those who know Oldbury and Smethwick reading the book holds that added frisson that one is able to locate one’s own history in its pages – why is that so satisfying? It must be something to do with being able to place yourself on a bigger map. The book is so precisely set in place that I could imagine retracing the children’s steps on their annual, unsupervised, trip to a bluebell wood beyond Brandhall Golf Course. I know the canals, now overshadowed by roaring motorways. In Rood End Cemetery, where Ahlberg’s parents are buried, I seem to know that that other son of Oldbury, Jack Judge, who wrote ‘It’s a Long Way to Tipperary’ for a bet, is also buried (Stalybridge – he’s ours!). I must check if this is true. If you know please mention it in the comments section.
But even without the local interest this book tells a story which is known – childhood. Ahlberg calls it ‘An Elemental Childhood’, characterised by encounters with dirt, sparks and water. Play was with worms, birds’ eggs and snails. The children were outdoors children and despite the industrial landscape knew about nature from allotments, municipal parks, gutters and canals. Ahlberg does not shirk telling it how it was: children who evaded the rough and ready adult control of park keepers and watchmen were sometimes drowned in pools or fell through ceilings in derelict buildings. But children were also independent, forming themselves into football teams in West Smethwick Park, organising ice slides on the snowy playground and taking themselves off to the woods in the spring with the baby in the pram. There was plenty to be scared of in dark hallways and alleys. In those days even domestic appliances were heavy gauge and intimidating – the mangle in particular – and the ham slicer at the butchers seemed to be menacingly alive to the child who could only glimpse it through gaps in the counter top. And although childhood is changed now, it still remains true that small children are the little people finding out about an alien land belonging to the giants.
Allan’s eyes took it all in, and his author’s voice spilled it all out again in his charming but also sometimes slightly wicked, and even a little anarchic, rhymes and stories. Childhood playfulness survived in his love for playing with words. In one story, for instance, the clothes horse of his childhood is transformed into a mischievous horse made of clothes. This sharp eye, sharpened further by imagination, gives the lie to his teacher’s damning verdict of 1946, “Allan could do much better work. He is most inattentive ….”.
Followers might recall that in my second post on this blog I said I would write about Allan Ahlberg’s autobiographical book “The Bucket, Memories of an Inattentive Childhood” (by the way, I have a first blog post, which no one seems to be looking at: here). My local library has now come up with the goods, and I have read this slim volume, not so much an autobiography as a collection of sketches, poems and memories from Allan Ahlberg, with illustrations mostly taken from his other books.
Ahlberg was born in London in 1938, adopted by a couple who lived in the West Midlands (Worcestershire then), and brought home by his new mum on the train to smoky Oldbury to meet his new dad, who was working on that day, as on every other. They paid the solicitor £2:15:1. In itself, this is a history to reflect on. When Allan was told by a spiteful girl that his mum was not his real mum he confronted this strongest of strong women, capable of intimidating larger neighbours who dared chastise her child (“My kids…Hit your own.”), and she was reduced to tears, ‘her raw red cleaner’s hands twisting away at her apron as she struggled to speak’. But this isn’t a misery memoir. Ahlberg only touches on the sensitive nerve of his adoption as an aside in his account of the harem-scarem of a 1940s working class boyhood in which he, and all his peers, ran pretty wild (but with their own traditions of conformity) through the streets of Oldbury and Smethwick, protected from the sky by its smothering of antiseptic smog. This medical tang still hangs over Oldbury when the air is still. In those days, we learn, it came from British Industrial Plastics, Guest, Kean and Nettlefold, Danks, Chance and Hunt, Accles and Pollock, Brades – names in some cases living on in the street names of the area.
To those who know Oldbury and Smethwick reading the book holds that added frisson that one is able to locate one’s own history in its pages – why is that so satisfying? It must be something to do with being able to place yourself on a bigger map. The book is so precisely set in place that I could imagine retracing the children’s steps on their annual, unsupervised, trip to a bluebell wood beyond Brandhall Golf Course. I know the canals, now overshadowed by roaring motorways. In Rood End Cemetery, where Ahlberg’s parents are buried, I seem to know that that other son of Oldbury, Jack Judge, who wrote ‘It’s a Long Way to Tipperary’ for a bet, is also buried (Stalybridge – he’s ours!). I must check if this is true. If you know please mention it in the comments section.
But even without the local interest this book tells a story which is known – childhood. Ahlberg calls it ‘An Elemental Childhood’, characterised by encounters with dirt, sparks and water. Play was with worms, birds’ eggs and snails. The children were outdoors children and despite the industrial landscape knew about nature from allotments, municipal parks, gutters and canals. Ahlberg does not shirk telling it how it was: children who evaded the rough and ready adult control of park keepers and watchmen were sometimes drowned in pools or fell through ceilings in derelict buildings. But children were also independent, forming themselves into football teams in West Smethwick Park, organising ice slides on the snowy playground and taking themselves off to the woods in the spring with the baby in the pram. There was plenty to be scared of in dark hallways and alleys. In those days even domestic appliances were heavy gauge and intimidating – the mangle in particular – and the ham slicer at the butchers seemed to be menacingly alive to the child who could only glimpse it through gaps in the counter top. And although childhood is changed now, it still remains true that small children are the little people finding out about an alien land belonging to the giants.
Allan’s eyes took it all in, and his author’s voice spilled it all out again in his charming but also sometimes slightly wicked, and even a little anarchic, rhymes and stories. Childhood playfulness survived in his love for playing with words. In one story, for instance, the clothes horse of his childhood is transformed into a mischievous horse made of clothes. This sharp eye, sharpened further by imagination, gives the lie to his teacher’s damning verdict of 1946, “Allan could do much better work. He is most inattentive ….”.
January 22, 2022
I borrowed this book for my husband. We both loved reading Ahlberg's books to the children, years ago, and Ahlberg is a similar age to my husband, and was brought up in similar surroundings. I read it too. My childhood was not the same, not at all, but I recognised Ahlberg's from the stories my husband has shared. This book is whimsical, interspersed with stories and poems of the kind his readers will be familiar with. A slight book, quickly read, which won't stay long in my memory.
December 2, 2022
A nice book of poems, memories and thoughts. I’m not a huge fan of poetry but loved his one about football. Personally I would have preferred more of a longer narrative about his childhood but it was an easy read, written in this style.
August 9, 2025
As someone who, although a decade younger than Ahlberg, also has a bucketful of varied memories of the years leading up to the dreaded teens and all clamouring to be organised into a memoir, I was both entertained and enlightened by The Bucket.
In fact (to change the metaphor) Ahlberg’s little book, described as his first for adults, is a verbal quilt: fashioned from scraps and rags – some authentic, others borrowed, a few threadbare and fragile but still retaining vivid colours – it’s been sewn together in seemingly random patterns yet with adjacent pieces often entering into a kind of dialogue with each other.
Actually, ‘vivid’ is probably the best description: aided by illustrations, photographs and documents, The Bucket was for me a pleasing assault on the senses, evoking a time gone by dominated by smells, sights, tastes, sounds and experiences not so dissimilar to those I remember from my own childhood.
Ahlberg wrote a number of picture books and story books, many illustrated by his wife and later his daughter, which have become classics, titles like Each Peach Pear Plum (1978), The Jolly Postman (1986) and the series Happy Families. But he’s best known for the book he wrote with Janet’s illustrations called Peepo! (1981) for which The Bucket can almost be regarded as a companion piece – the two titles share many of the same vignettes.
And what makes his children’s books so popular with adults as well as the children they were originally aimed at? It’s their mix of nostalgia and images, and details that repay being lingered over; it’s the way they welcome both reader and audience into their world. And it’s also the words, rhymes and rhythms, the almost traditional feel of tales heard at the knees of a family member or as a bedtime story, that makes them outstanding.
And it’s the same with this memoir. Ahlberg is like that relative who worries their memories might falter but wants to get them out there for posterity, apologising all the while: here are the nursery rhyme quatrains, the conversational anecdotes, the choice quotes, the odd treasured object functioning as an aide-mémoire. Strict chronological order may go hang, but we gather that as a baby he’s been adopted by a childless couple in Oldbury, originally in Worcestershire but now in the West Midlands, and that his birth mother was unmarried and his father— well, my guess is that he may’ve been a Swedish sailor.
Reading this book is like opening a scrapbook, turning pages like opening a door to peer down corridors, into a room, or down a street. Oldbury is the matrix for his childhood from the war years to around 1950, its smoke and grime the air he breathes, its shops, school, park, allotments and waste ground his playgrounds. Mangle, street lamps, Christmas pillow case, bacon slicer, clothes horse, panda bear and nature all have a part to play and a meaning to fathom.
Bucket, quilt, scrapbook, portal – such metaphors and similes only go so far. What matters is the telling, and for the reader the sense of being transported to another time and place and into the lives of other people who, in some other circumstances, could have been mutual neighbours, family, acquaintances, friends.
In fact (to change the metaphor) Ahlberg’s little book, described as his first for adults, is a verbal quilt: fashioned from scraps and rags – some authentic, others borrowed, a few threadbare and fragile but still retaining vivid colours – it’s been sewn together in seemingly random patterns yet with adjacent pieces often entering into a kind of dialogue with each other.
Actually, ‘vivid’ is probably the best description: aided by illustrations, photographs and documents, The Bucket was for me a pleasing assault on the senses, evoking a time gone by dominated by smells, sights, tastes, sounds and experiences not so dissimilar to those I remember from my own childhood.
Ahlberg wrote a number of picture books and story books, many illustrated by his wife and later his daughter, which have become classics, titles like Each Peach Pear Plum (1978), The Jolly Postman (1986) and the series Happy Families. But he’s best known for the book he wrote with Janet’s illustrations called Peepo! (1981) for which The Bucket can almost be regarded as a companion piece – the two titles share many of the same vignettes.
And what makes his children’s books so popular with adults as well as the children they were originally aimed at? It’s their mix of nostalgia and images, and details that repay being lingered over; it’s the way they welcome both reader and audience into their world. And it’s also the words, rhymes and rhythms, the almost traditional feel of tales heard at the knees of a family member or as a bedtime story, that makes them outstanding.
And it’s the same with this memoir. Ahlberg is like that relative who worries their memories might falter but wants to get them out there for posterity, apologising all the while: here are the nursery rhyme quatrains, the conversational anecdotes, the choice quotes, the odd treasured object functioning as an aide-mémoire. Strict chronological order may go hang, but we gather that as a baby he’s been adopted by a childless couple in Oldbury, originally in Worcestershire but now in the West Midlands, and that his birth mother was unmarried and his father— well, my guess is that he may’ve been a Swedish sailor.
The sun shone down on Oldbury
When I was growing up
Under the rusty Rounds Green Hills
In a hot and sulphurous cup.
Reading this book is like opening a scrapbook, turning pages like opening a door to peer down corridors, into a room, or down a street. Oldbury is the matrix for his childhood from the war years to around 1950, its smoke and grime the air he breathes, its shops, school, park, allotments and waste ground his playgrounds. Mangle, street lamps, Christmas pillow case, bacon slicer, clothes horse, panda bear and nature all have a part to play and a meaning to fathom.
Bucket, quilt, scrapbook, portal – such metaphors and similes only go so far. What matters is the telling, and for the reader the sense of being transported to another time and place and into the lives of other people who, in some other circumstances, could have been mutual neighbours, family, acquaintances, friends.
But still I have a job to do
Some little tales to tell
And I’ll bring my other bucket
To the Memory Well.
April 21, 2025
Such a poignant book full of childhood memories of Allan Ahlberg’s childhood growing up in Oldbury in Worcestershire. He was born in 1938 and adopted by his very lovely parents who were absolute battlers, his mother cleaning houses and his dad working long hours as a fitter’s mate, basically a lowly paid labourer. Those days you paid £2 15 shillings and received a receipt for the baby! The poem about his mum taking a tram then train to the Battersea children’s home to pick him up is a joy. Four lines to give you an idea of the 40 line poem:
Back then to Paddington
Weather wet and mild
Brand- new mother
Second-hand child.
Even though I was born in 1951, his reminiscences of the freedom children were given to roam the neighbourhood are very similar to my own. Plus the memories of the sawdust strewn butcher’s shop, public transport,the various shopkeepers, very basic food and once a week baths. The picture of his 2nd grade report is a classic and similar to my own husband’s. The summary says “Allen could do so much better. He is most inattentive and dreamy at times.”
Thank heavens this wonderful author kept his dreams alive so that he could write the most beloved children’s books so perfectly illustrated by his wife Janet who sadly died at age 50 from breast cancer when their only child, now illustrator, Jessica Ahlberg was only 15. A small treasure of a book, 129 pages of joy.
Back then to Paddington
Weather wet and mild
Brand- new mother
Second-hand child.
Even though I was born in 1951, his reminiscences of the freedom children were given to roam the neighbourhood are very similar to my own. Plus the memories of the sawdust strewn butcher’s shop, public transport,the various shopkeepers, very basic food and once a week baths. The picture of his 2nd grade report is a classic and similar to my own husband’s. The summary says “Allen could do so much better. He is most inattentive and dreamy at times.”
Thank heavens this wonderful author kept his dreams alive so that he could write the most beloved children’s books so perfectly illustrated by his wife Janet who sadly died at age 50 from breast cancer when their only child, now illustrator, Jessica Ahlberg was only 15. A small treasure of a book, 129 pages of joy.
August 6, 2018
I loved this charming, nostalgic mix of essay and poetry recalling a particular sort of English childhood. The last page brought me to tears. Allan Ahlberg is such a gem.
January 6, 2015
A short but intriguing little read telling the author's memories of his childhood in Oldbury in the Black Country, a mixture of short poems and prose, several highly entertaining episodes that bring back memories of one's own childhood, beautifully-described setting in a Midlands industrial town (loved how he described the family going on holiday to get burnt by the sun and then 'retreating' under the industrial smog for another year where the sun did not reach!). 8.5/10.
March 20, 2022
I'm a great fan of Ahlberg's books but found 'The Bucket' rather too full of nostalgic musings. I'd hoped for more insight into how his childhood had influenced his development as an author and an illustrator. Instead we are given a written description of what we have already seen illustrated in the books we know and love.
May 14, 2020
Probably the most reflective memoir I have ever read. And it truly is a memoir and true to the way that memory is, half-forgotten, sometimes fictionalised, sometimes stolen.
I highly recommend this book. The chapter Degrees of Life was a particular favourite.
I highly recommend this book. The chapter Degrees of Life was a particular favourite.
October 14, 2017
A short but sweet memoir of childhood in a Black Country town by this well-known children's book author, told in a mix of poems and little anecdotes - disjointed, as memories are.
March 11, 2018
This was a charming read, an autobiography of sorts, consisting of prose and poetry by the author, interspersed with drawings by the author’s daughter, Jessica.
It focuses mainly on his childhood, memories, both clear and vague, and ruminates on the nature of memory also. Growing up in Industrial England, adopted by parents, lacking in riches but not in love, it brings to life a time, almost forgotten, of simple pleasures, hard work and the importance of family.
He describes his writing process very clearly too, how “dreamy at times”, as reported by his teachers, stood to him in formulating ideas that were the basis of a series of stories, one of which was “The Clothes Horse”. Here too he describes the atmosphere of his family home very clearly, the clothes horse, with its stuffy smell of laundry, a permanent fixture beside the stove, making a perfect hiding place for him as a child.
I very much liked his poems, two of which simply, but beautifully describe his mother and his father. All of his poems are simple, with a rhythmic, bouncy flow and end rhyme, but they capture aspects of his youth very effectively and succinctly.
It was a lovely book, and very consistent with his other, more well-known books that I had read as a child. His voice is unique, simple in style, often humorous but conveying much in its simplicity.
It focuses mainly on his childhood, memories, both clear and vague, and ruminates on the nature of memory also. Growing up in Industrial England, adopted by parents, lacking in riches but not in love, it brings to life a time, almost forgotten, of simple pleasures, hard work and the importance of family.
He describes his writing process very clearly too, how “dreamy at times”, as reported by his teachers, stood to him in formulating ideas that were the basis of a series of stories, one of which was “The Clothes Horse”. Here too he describes the atmosphere of his family home very clearly, the clothes horse, with its stuffy smell of laundry, a permanent fixture beside the stove, making a perfect hiding place for him as a child.
I very much liked his poems, two of which simply, but beautifully describe his mother and his father. All of his poems are simple, with a rhythmic, bouncy flow and end rhyme, but they capture aspects of his youth very effectively and succinctly.
It was a lovely book, and very consistent with his other, more well-known books that I had read as a child. His voice is unique, simple in style, often humorous but conveying much in its simplicity.
November 30, 2021
A mosaic of poetry, prose and illustrations of Ahlberg's wartime and postwar childhood all set in the Black Country, notably his hometown of Oldbury, which is near to my adopted home. There's a lot I could write about this book, but it is best described as Peepo for Grownups and I mean that as the very highest praise. It's called Memories of an Inattentive Childhood, yet the recollections of scents, tastes and sensations of early childhood are all presents, scabs, cold floors and warmed beds all included. Perfect.
December 17, 2022
A slim book with gentle reminiscences about his childhood interspersed with poems inspired by some of those events and feelings. Lovely insights into the relationships with his adoptive parents in a poor but hard working home.
I must admit I have never read any of his other work, but this will certainly encourage me to seek them out.
I must admit I have never read any of his other work, but this will certainly encourage me to seek them out.
September 4, 2023
Ahlberg (and Janet) found the right home in children's picture books, giving us some of the most transporting and re-readable stories of our early years. He comes across here as too distractable for longer chunks of prose, so I don't see myself coming back to these snatched vignettes anywhere near as often, as charming as they often are.
September 10, 2026
I love the Ahlbergs’ picture books and I was interested in this as I grew up near Oldbury but although this was charming it felt rather slight and seemed to be patchworked together from other books of his. I got a slight sense of his publishers and agent trying to make a quick buck out. I’d have liked a longer narrative about growing up in the Black Country in the 40s.
March 18, 2023
“Time, of course, as we all learn, accelerates with life, rushes off with us at the end. But it does so from a standing start. Three-year-olds creep like snails through their days. Baby time is geological.”
November 3, 2024
Ahlberg manages to combine his love for rhyme with his childhood memories. It's quite inspirational to read autobiographical content in metre. It beautifully meshes his memories with who he has become as a children's book author.
December 23, 2018
Ahlberg is one of my most favorite children's authors and it was fun to read about his own childhood...presented with honesty and whimsy.
August 4, 2019
Unable to read this kindle format wasted £4.99!
I chose this rating as unable to read the content as letters to small to see . It is not in a format readable on a kindle.
I chose this rating as unable to read the content as letters to small to see . It is not in a format readable on a kindle.
May 7, 2020
A joy to read during lockdown as I’ve always loved the Ahlberg children’s books.
March 29, 2022
Charming and quirky set of reminiscences.
January 15, 2023
Charming, conjures up another time and place beautifully
May 9, 2025
A delightful little book, scraps of post-war memory and touching recollections of childhood and beloved stories; heartwarming and precious.
September 5, 2013
Allan Ahlberg is a bit of a legend in my eyes. Regular readers of Books with Bunny will know I am hugely passionate about high quality children's books and Ahlberg has been at the top of this field for decades. I read his books when I was a child myself, particularly enjoying the Happy Families series (Mr Tick the Teacher may well have ignited my desire to work in a small school and influenced my career choice-talk about a life changing read!) and Ahlberg has continued to be an ever-present in my life as a reader, in recent years when reading to the children I work with and my own son.
So when I heard that Allan's new memoir of poetry and prose The Bucket was being published by Penguin I was very keen to read it, and begged Penguin to let me have an advance copy. It was time to learn more about the man behind the magic.
The Bucket is a nostalgic collection; short yet embracing Ahlberg's family life (he was adopted as a child) and portraying aspects of childhood that readers will be able to relate to. Unfortunately, the memory which struck me most was the horrifying fact that circa 1987 I ate one of my scabs whilst waiting for ballet class to begin (the wonderful The Things I Ate might remind you of some deeply buried 'meals' you enjoyed as a child too).
Whilst reading The Bucket there were times I was reminded of the work of the late Seamus Heaney-not in the style which is predominantly rhyming poetry and simple yet emotive prose, but in the content. Ahlberg's ability to conjure up long-forgotten images of a bygone era left me with pangs of emotion- heartbreak and humour side by side. As I read I was reminded of how I felt the first time I read Heaney's Blackberry-Picking, longing for the innocence of youth to remain. The generic experiences of childhood combined with Ahlberg's personal memories makes The Bucket a touching and heart-felt read.
I found The Bucket to be a charming memoir, and I am sure it will appeal to a wide ranging audience.
So when I heard that Allan's new memoir of poetry and prose The Bucket was being published by Penguin I was very keen to read it, and begged Penguin to let me have an advance copy. It was time to learn more about the man behind the magic.
The Bucket is a nostalgic collection; short yet embracing Ahlberg's family life (he was adopted as a child) and portraying aspects of childhood that readers will be able to relate to. Unfortunately, the memory which struck me most was the horrifying fact that circa 1987 I ate one of my scabs whilst waiting for ballet class to begin (the wonderful The Things I Ate might remind you of some deeply buried 'meals' you enjoyed as a child too).
Whilst reading The Bucket there were times I was reminded of the work of the late Seamus Heaney-not in the style which is predominantly rhyming poetry and simple yet emotive prose, but in the content. Ahlberg's ability to conjure up long-forgotten images of a bygone era left me with pangs of emotion- heartbreak and humour side by side. As I read I was reminded of how I felt the first time I read Heaney's Blackberry-Picking, longing for the innocence of youth to remain. The generic experiences of childhood combined with Ahlberg's personal memories makes The Bucket a touching and heart-felt read.
I found The Bucket to be a charming memoir, and I am sure it will appeal to a wide ranging audience.
July 4, 2015
Allan Ahlberg has long been one of our greatest writers for children; his poetry, novels and classic picture book texts display a keen ear for the language of children and a deep understanding of how they see the world. In The Bucket he captures memories of his own childhood in the Black Country during the war, and examines them to see what they contain and where they might lead. To some extent this is a companion volume to his earlier book, The Boyhood of Burglar Bill, which explored his childhood in fictional form. The Bucket, in a mixture of short prose passages and poems, is a book about the senses of childhood, the fleeting recollections of colours, sounds and smells (anyone familiar with the Ahlbergs' classic picture book Peepo will gain greater understanding of some of the images it contains from reading The Bucket). The author also explores the childhood origins of some his best-known stories and poems, including one of my favourites, Life Savings.
February 2, 2016
Lovely book!
I tend to avoid poetry like the plague but this memoir ( is it? Or is it more a collection of recollections of childhood told in poetry and prose) is scattered with them.
They're very accessible in that they don't go over my head at all but are easy to read with a lovely rhythm to them.
There are very short stories in there too which make me wish I was a child again, delighting in a new book I've read and enjoyed.
I just have to content myself with being an adult and delighting in a book I'm reading!
I tend to avoid poetry like the plague but this memoir ( is it? Or is it more a collection of recollections of childhood told in poetry and prose) is scattered with them.
They're very accessible in that they don't go over my head at all but are easy to read with a lovely rhythm to them.
There are very short stories in there too which make me wish I was a child again, delighting in a new book I've read and enjoyed.
I just have to content myself with being an adult and delighting in a book I'm reading!
May 5, 2015
Ok so I read this little gem of a book in one sitting. That in my books says its a good book. I have now past it on to my Mum and Sister to read.
It is part biographical and part stretched out into a story. I like the way the book has lots of snippets that all tie in together. The illustrations ate cute too.
Definitely a must read if you like a quick read of someone's childhood during the second world war and beyond.
It is part biographical and part stretched out into a story. I like the way the book has lots of snippets that all tie in together. The illustrations ate cute too.
Definitely a must read if you like a quick read of someone's childhood during the second world war and beyond.
January 8, 2014
So Alan Alhberg! A sweet little book with poems and memories of his childhood . The stories take you back to another era and perhaps bringing back similar childhood memories of your own. I very much liked the illustrations of children playing games and of the animals in the stories.
February 6, 2014
A lovely little book. I read lots of Allan Ahlberg books to my children when they were young, always loved them. Lovely memories in this book and I love the illustrations. Good things come in small packages!
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