Allan Ahlberg, Whose Children's Books Were Best Sellers, Dies at 87
His death was announced by his publisher, Penguin Random House, which did not identify a specific location or a cause.
As a young man, Mr. Ahlberg held a series of solitary jobs, including digging graves. 'I was looking for a job in the open air where they left you alone,' he told the British newspaper The Independent in 2008.
'I became a gravedigger by a process of elimination,' he said. 'I had been a plumber's mate, a soldier and a postman.'
But he fantasized about becoming a writer.
'I had all the romantic notions of the white suit and the panama hat,' he said in a 2006 interview with The Guardian. 'All the Somerset Maugham images without any words to support them.'
It wasn't until he was 22, and attending Sunderland Teacher Training College (now part of the University of Sunderland), that he met Janet Hall, his future wife, and was inspired to fulfill his dream.
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