Burglar Bill
- Brand: Unbranded
Description
Classic characters like Burglar Bill and The Jolly Postman have become firm favourites with a generation of children who are now reading them to their own offspring. If I had to recommend ‘Burglar Bill’ I would suggest its use in the EYFS, purely as a book to read to the class and facilitate a discussion about stranger danger. This book was recommended by a friend (another grandmother) and so I go it to read to my grandchildren - ages 8 and 6. A book about a Career Burglar who decides to become a better man out of his own self-discovery (and not because he met the right woman) would be a far more compelling children's book.
It's such an oddball story as Burglar Bill lives upto his name and pinches anything he fancies, including a box with a big surprise.The improbable union that follows offers a convenient moral that turns both thieves into honest folk who vow to keep on the straight and narrow. I find amusement in the fact that my issue isn't with the Willingly Be A Criminal Without Consequence, though that is a problem, but with the fact that it's teaching very typical media versions of relationships, which always bothers me. Being my school's librarian, I now get to sort through books we get and idly skim through them when I've got a moment. Reading with astonishment how hardened career criminals turn their lives around abandoning their parasitic lifestyle to became stalwart pillars of the community. Janet Ahlberg (21 October 1944 – 13 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.
Bright illustrations (if somewhat stereotypical, with Burglars Bill and Betty in stripy shirts, eye masks and carrying swag bags! I note that many American libraries in WorldCat have it in their collection, so perhaps the eventual reformation of the characters was enough for it to pass muster. The striking simplicity of Bill's burgling outfit – a black mask and cap and a striped shirt – has made Burglar Bill a popular party or Halloween costume choice.
Bill and Betty exchange pleasantries and after a short while Bill describes his unusual find the other evening. We know by now that this is of course what all burglars say when they are burgling a home, so Burglar Bill realises he's being burgled and goes downstairs and sees a woman with a striped top and a mask over her eyes. As with The Tiger Who Came to Tea , you find yourself reading about something quite bizarre, but described in a way as if it were the most natural thing in the world! And of course to give up their burgling ways - clearly a story for children has to have a moral ending! I would of much preferred it if Burglar Bill and Burglar Betty had carried on with their mischievous ways, committing themselves to a life of crime, with a third member (Burglar Baby) joining in with the midnight antics.
I have to give it 5 stars just for keeping me amused for a good while some 25 years after I first read it. You can change your choices at any time by visiting Cookie preferences, as described in the Cookie notice. The picture book which dares to show how prison policy can best be reformed by the introduction of dating agencies and matchmaking.Innovative, funny and moving, his work encompasses storybooks, picture books, easy readers, joke books and novels as well as poems.
The pictures on the page add an extra element of humour and bring the characters on the page to life. It’s been a staple in my house now for almost twenty years and even when my kids have flown the nest I’ll read it. The illustrations have a timeless charm, full of character and period detail, wonderfully rich and coloured in a style that's not that familiar these days.Anyway, gosh, Burglar Bill is totally defined by his whole burglar-ness, as well as his Englishness, as every night he has 'stolen fish and chips and a cup of stolen tea for supper'. Burglar Bill is a thief and all of his possessions are stolen items, including the bed he goes to sleep in.
- Fruugo ID: 258392218-563234582
- EAN: 764486781913
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