Down The Back Of The Chair by Margaret Mahy and Polly Dunbar

Did you read my review of Bubble Trouble? You should have. Then you would know that these two together are “mastermind brilliance” and while Bubble Trouble is an adventure in the skies, Down The Back of The Chair is an excavation affair.

We all know how lounge chairs just love to devour odds and ends that fall from your pockets while you’re sitting on them, often lost for eons, or at least until you remember that you should probably vacuum under the cushions. Then, lo and behold: coins, keys, toys and buttons, adrift in a sea of crumbs and food scraps.

So Margaret Mahy asks, if all these things, then what else?

“A crumb, a comb, a clown, a cap,
a pirate with a treasure map,
a dragon trying to take a nap –
down the back of the chair.”

 Oh the joys that can be found!

“But what is this? Oh, bliss! Oh, bliss!
Down the back of the chair.
The long lost will of Uncle Bill,
down the back of the chair.”

So with their new found fortune:

“Forget the keys! We’re poor no more.
Just call a taxi to the door.”
A taxi shot out with a roar
from down the back of the chair.”

(This part always makes me laugh)

I do apologise for quoting so much from the book for this review, but really? Can you not see the skill with which Margaret Mahy crafts her work? In her hands you know what rhyme was meant to do. 

I love picture books so much!