A Boy Went Out to Gather Pears

A Boy Went Out to Gather Pears is a 1966 picture book for children by the Swiss author and illustrator Felix Hoffmann. It is the English translation of Hoffmann's 1963 adaptation (Swiss Standard German: Joggeli wott go Birli schüttle, lit. 'Joggeli Wants to Shake the Pears'), published by Harcourt, Brace & World in the United States and Oxford University Press in the United Kingdom.

In literary history, this story is categorized as ATU type 2030, and that category is named "The Old Woman and Her Pig" after that original centuries-old oral tradition story from England. This category is defined by the common specific plot mechanic of a protagonist organizing a chain of coercion to force a stubborn character to perform a task. The violence in these stories has slowly decreased alongside society's deemphasis of violence in childrearing and teaching.

A Boy Went Out to Gather Pears is distinguished for its use of lithography and its oblong format which accommodates the widening cumulative rhyme structure as it unfolds. It was named one of the New York Times Best Illustrated Children's Books of the year. A Boy Went Out to Gather Pears was indexed in Masterworks of Children's Literature (Volume 8), a curated canon of the 20th century. Hoffmann is regarded as one of the three defining figures of the Swiss picture book tradition in the 20th century.