The Farmer’s Pyjamas  

Ruth Paul

 

The Farmer’s Pyjamas 
Ruth Paul (2026)
Walker Books
Picture book
34 pages, hardback
ISBN 978 1 760659 91 2

 ‘Before the farmer’s day is done,
she does her chores, one by one.’

Young readers (and young people being read to) take a gleeful delight in picture books where things go wrong. They also enjoy spotting clever details in pictures. The Farmer’s Pyjamas is a winner both ways. Ruth Paul has a great story and uses words and pictures with admirable skill to tell it in the best possible way.

 There is a gentle introduction; the calm before the storm. The farmer is completing her evening round of work, in artist-author Ruth Paul’s rhyming couplets:

‘She milks the cow, counts the sheep.
sings the piglets off to sleep.’

The catalogue of animals the farmer cares for is well done, from llamas to hens, horse to cat. At night, the farmer brushes her teeth and heads for bed, after her hard day’s work. Then disaster strikes. Her pyjamas are missing! Readers have already seen the farmer’s favourite pyjamas on the cover and half-title page, a snazzy navy-blue pair with a career-appropriate pattern of sheep.  [The fabric’s pattern of sheep is repeated on the endpapers for those planning to dress up for their next Favourite Characters contest.]

Without her favourite pyjamas, the farmer can’t get to sleep, so she becomes increasingly muddled as she yawns her way through her usual chores.

‘She milks the horse, stables the cow,
puts the sheep in the sty with the sow.’

This is fun for the reader but not for the animals, who start their own search for the missing nightwear, with the hens scratching in the garden and the llamas inspecting the strawberry patch. It is the dog who uses his nose and solves the mystery.

The conclusion – no spoilers – is simultaneously amusing, charming and … just perfect.

 

Ruth Paul’s illustrations for her story are appealing and witty. Her large-eyed animals are a delight, especially the blue cow (a nod to Marc Chagall) and the sneezing-and-spitting llama. Perhaps her funniest illustration shows a band of boisterous piglets roosting on the henhouse perches.

 The layout of The Farmer’s Pyjamas deserves special mention. (Design by Sarah Mitchell.) No two pages are the same. The colourful pictures, large and small, carry the readers along through the story. There are cute details and clever linking methods, making this book a joy to read with young people.   

 The Farmer’s Pyjamas is a classic of the future.

 

 Trevor Agnew

23 June 2026  [Review 3848]