Previously

"Jack was running like mad in the dark woods with a hen under his arm.
Previously, he had stolen the hen and climbed down a beanstalk."

But do you know what was Jack doing before he climbed down the beanstalk?

Or what Jack and Jill were arguing about before they went up the hill? And what happened before that? Every story, every person, and every thing started somewhere, and now the inventive and whimsical Allan Ahlberg explores what all your favorite storybook characters were up to previously, aided by Bruce Ingman’s energetic illustrations.

From the Hardcover edition.

The team behind THE RUNAWAY DINNER reverses direction in this clever pastiche of fairy tales in which everyone lives happily ever . . . before.

"Jack was running like mad in the dark woods with a hen under his arm.
Previously, he had stolen the hen and climbed down a beanstalk."

But do you know what was Jack doing before he climbed down the beanstalk?

Or what Jack and Jill were arguing about before they went up the hill? And what happened before that? Every story, every person, and every thing started somewhere, and now the inventive and whimsical Allan Ahlberg explores what all your favorite storybook characters were up to previously, aided by Bruce Ingman’s energetic illustrations.

School Library Journal

PreS-Gr 2 This reverse cumulative tale cleverly connects some fairy tales and nursery rhymes. "Goldilocks arrived home all bothered and hot. Previously she had been running like mad in the dark woods. Previously she had been climbing out of somebody else's window." Previously, she had bumped into Jack who "was running like mad in the dark woods with a hen under his arm." Cinderella was "bumped into by...The Gingerbread Boy" and his whole group of followers. The ingenuous acrylic paintings mirror the turnabouts artfully so that, for example, Jack appears four times on the same spread: falling down a hill with Jill, playing soccer, talking with his mother, and exchanging a cow for some beans. The jazzy, colorful pictures display substantive variety: silhouetted figures dance at Cinderella's ball; she previously runs through trees that rise out of Impressionist-like blue-dotted ground; the prince who danced with Cinderella changes into a frog; his head visibly transforms in a series of views atop his normal head. Read this book aloud so that youngsters can chime in and shout the word "previously" 29 times. Children will delight in this energetic, amusing, and very approachable tale.-Kirsten Cutler, Sonoma County Library, CA

Allan Ahlberg is the author of THE RUNAWAY DINNER, illustrated by Bruce Ingman; HALF A PIG, illustrated by his daughter, Jessica Ahlberg; the Gaskitts books, illustrated by Katharine McEwen; and many other titles, including the popular Jolly Postman series. He lives in Bath, England.

Bruce Ingman is an award-winning children’s book illustrator who illustrated THE RUNAWAY DINNER by Allan Ahlberg and BOING! by Sean Taylor. He lives in London.