Peggy by Anna Walker

Peggy is another title which has been short listed for the CBCA Awards.

At its heart this book has a simple message "One good turn deserves another."

Take a close look at the front and back end papers before you begin to read this book.  You will see a train travelling from the country to the city - it appears empty at the beginning but there is a surprising passenger at the end.

This is a book for a pre-school aged child.  It will be interesting to see how my Kindergarten students react. I do like the way the visual images go way beyond the written word.  For example when we read  "every day, rain or shine, Peggy ate breakfast, played in her yard and watched the pigeons."  In a series of small comic strip style pictures you will see Peggy eating (five panels), playing with her food bowl, sitting on fence in all weathers including the snow, trampolining, using a sun flower as a spring and gazing at the pigeons overhead.  Similarly the little images later in the book that show all her experiences in the city contain lots of visual jokes.
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This book has a neat structure of life in the country, a city adventure, the journey home and a new life back in the country that will never be quite the same.  Peggy's life has certainly been enriched by her recent experiences.

There have been other books with similar themes of giving and receiving such as Jennie's hat by Ezra Jack Keats is one I thought of immediately.  We will also look at Queenie the Bantam by Bob Graham which is a about a chicken who makes a journey along with Daisy by Brian Wildsmith which is about a cow who heads off to the city.  This book also made me think about the classic story of Town Mouse and Country Mouse and we have a terrific little edition of this illustrated by Louise Pfanner.  Here is the web site for Anna Walker. Here is a review with teaching ideas.



Peggy by Anna Walker - book trailer from Anna Walker on Vimeo.