margaret mahy down the back of the chair

But when dad gives it a try, he comes up with all kinds of things.ĭown the back of the chair.Cute, huh? Reminiscent of Shel Silverstein with the ridiculous objects and the rhythm and rhyme, this book will be great fun as a read-aloud. When the car breaks down, the kids advise dad to do as they do search for change down the back of the chair. That and I can’t think of anything else.Īnyway, Down the Back of the Chair is a picture book of one longish poem that follows the story of a girl and her family searching for money. The author, Margaret Mahy, has unknowingly saved my the trouble of naming my blog entry today, as the title of her book is clever enough for me.

'About this title' may belong to another edition of this title.My offering up to the Poetry Friday gods is a new picture book by the name of Down the Back of the Chair. MacKay, Forestburg School Library, Alberta, CanadaĬopyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. A delightfully optimistic, entertaining crowd-pleaser. The watercolor and cut-paper illustrations are expressively detailed and whimsical, a superb match for the buoyant and breezy verse as it, too, flies this way and that. Dunbar's flower-patterned chair is wonderfully ordinary, and its plainness is in perfect contrast to the zany creatures and objects that spring forth from it. But when Dad pulls out the long lost will of Uncle Bill and his money hoard, the family's financial woes are over. From there the seemingly magical armchair produces a seven-inch-long spider, a clown, a string of pearls, two tea-sipping elephants, a pirate with a treasure map,/a dragon trying to take a nap–, and other delights. Dad's first reach into the easy chair's recesses yields a bit of hairy string, and then the first sign of reversed fortunes–a diamond ring. But then the narrator's two-year-old sister suggests that her father should do what she does when she loses something: search down the back of the chair. As the young female narrator points out, No car, no work! No work, no pay! and so the day begins quite grimly for the family that is growing poorer day by day. Kindergarten-Grade 3–This rollicking, rhyming, rags-to-riches story begins when Dad loses the keys to his beat-up car.

Margaret mahy down the back of the chair