What's the Name of That Book??? discussion

I read this in the early 1990s but I remember finding it a bit old fashioned so it might be older.

It was an anthology of poems or stories (I think poems is more likely), but the only one I remember was about a group of villagers building a giant pie. There was a lot of description of the amount of ingredients that went into it and how they had to stand on ladders to mix it etc. I think there were illustrations. A king or queen might have been involved somehow, and possibly someone fell into the pie at one point?

It could have been a reference to the Denby Dale pies (Yorkshire village with a tradition of making giant pies - see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denby_Dale) but I'm not 100% on that although I do think it was a British book.

When I google it I just get results about a poem by Ian McMillan from about 2012 but that's too recent & not the one I'm looking for.

I also found a folk song about a big meat pie but again I don't think it's the right one! https://monologues.co.uk/musichall/So...

Any help or clues would be appreciated...

Do you remember anything at all about the cover? That's useful when searching...

I think in English this is called a "shot in the dark" but you never know! A few anthologies of poetry for kids to see if the covers are anything like you remember:



Once Upon a Rhyme: 101 Poems for Young Children (picture of the cover: https://www.abebooks.com/servlet/Book...)

A lot of the books from that time from the UK seem to be from Puffin (the children division of Penguin, I think)

Rachel did you have any luck with the search? I can remember the imagery of the book too and wondered the same as you- what is it called?
I basically signed up here to let you know you are not mad or alone haha.

Hi Lachlan, no I still haven't found it yet, sadly! I'm glad somebody else remembers though. You do start to wonder if you are imagining things.

Did you look at random house book of poetry for children?

Hi Erin, I did have a look at that book but I can't find much information about the contents online, so I can't tell whether it contains the poem I mentioned.

Here is Amazon's "Look Inside" preview of The Random House Book of Poetry for Children by Jack Prelutsky - Erin's suggestion - which contains a table of contents:

https://www.amazon.com/Random-House-B...

Hi Kris, there's no preview at the link for me (maybe because I'm in the UK and this is the US Amazon site? The UK site does not have a preview either) Anyway I have no particular reason to think that this is the book. Thanks for the suggestion though.

Rachel wrote: "Hi Kris, there's no preview at the link for me (maybe because I'm in the UK and this is the US Amazon site? The UK site does not have a preview either) Anyway I have no particular reason to think t..."

Click the "Paperback" cover, wait a few seconds, and the preview should load on the Amazon US site. (It defaulted to the Hardcover edition without preview.)

Thanks Kris, I can see it now. There's nothing that looks like the poem I remember though. There's a poem about pie by Shel Silverstein, but it's only a few lines long. So at least I can rule out this book.

It's not Alligator Pie by Dennis Lee, is it?

The only thing this makes me think of is The Giant Jam Sandwich... but of course, that's not a pie! Good luck finding it, you've got me wondering now.

Alligator Pie by Dennis Lee - Dubhease's suggestion

The Giant Jam Sandwich by John Vernon Lord - June's suggestion (There are different cover images.)

Thanks for the suggestions. It's not Alligator Pie, I think that is too short. I remember it being a very long poem.

The Giant Jam Sandwich is a possibility. I definitely remember reading this book, but the illustrations don't look how I remember them - I thought they were all black and white. So, there's a question mark over this for the time being! Thanks June for the suggestion.

Hey guys and gals,
Thanks for the tip on the ham sandwich- I just bought it for my kids as I do have memories of this too!

The Piemakers?

I don't think that's it, Rosa. It has the black & white illustrations but the text is different than I remember. I'm pretty sure it was rhyming and a lot less wordy. Thanks for the suggestion anyway.