Be Prepared for Children: Peekaboo Farm
book by Annie Ingle
review by H. Wallace Goddard

Nature has so conspired that the people who have young children are so overwhelmed by life that they are often not prepared to entertain the children. There is a ready solution. Every adult human being could carry a copy of “Peekaboo Farm” with charming illustrations by Jane Dyer. When you are traveling on a plane, bus, or train and a restless child needs some diversion, pull out the book. When a high councilman in a sacrament meeting talk stalls on the Nephite migrations, pull out the book.

The first double-page spread features the interior of a barn with numbers from 1 to 20 on flaps. Behind each flap is a corresponding number of some item-cats, lady bugs, hoes, etc. It seems that children never tire of looking behind those flaps.

If they do, you can turn to the next spread with colors and garden plants behind the flaps. Then flaps in the barnyard, flaps with animal young, and flaps on a quilt. The typical preschooler will finish the book and immediately begin again.

If you don’t have the time or the inclination to make a quiet book for the children in your life, this is the book for you. Maybe we can all be prepared to help children survive those Nephite migrations.


Peekaboo Farm (2000) text by Annie Ingle, illustrations by Jane Dyer. Random House.

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