Down the Back of the Chair

Starred review from April 10, 2006
When the kids suggest Dad look for his lost car keys in the depths of their wingback chair, the family's fortunes take a dramatic and deliciously silly turn for the better. Mahy's crisp rhyming quatrains, in the voice of a precocious girl, start the action at a comic pitch that escalates with every page. "We're facing rack and ruin./ No car, no work! No work, no pay!/ We're growing poorer by the day." Sticking his hand "down the back of the chair"—a phrase that refers to both a universe under the seat cushion and also the book's refrain—Dad turns up much more than keys or loose change. There's precious jewelry, a menagerie ranging from a conger eel to a pair of tea-drinking elephants plus "a missing twin" and a pirate with a treasure map. Dunbar's (Dog Blue
) watercolor and cut-paper illustrations goose the giddiness of the text without sacrificing a visual equilibrium. She creates a tantalizing contrast as Dad grows ga-ga from the magical goings-on while his children maintain a cool sense of delight. The car keys never surface, but a rich uncle's long lost will and treasure do. It's an inspired flight of fancy—and certain to turn "Down the back of the chair" into a rallying cry in many households. Ages 4-7.

June 1, 2006
K-Gr 3 -This rollicking, rhyming, rags-to-riches story begins when Dad loses the keys to his beat-up car. 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. - 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. - And then the fun really begins. 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. 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. But when Dad pulls out the -long lost will of Uncle Bill - and his money hoard, the family -s financial woes are over. 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. 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. A delightfully optimistic, entertaining crowd-pleaser." -Carol L. MacKay, Forestburg School Library, Alberta, Canada"

Copyright 2006 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

May 1, 2006
PreS-Gr. 2. Like Shel Silverstein's poetry, Mahy's exuberant rhyme bounces with nonsensical humor and begs for guitar accompaniment. On a bleak day, when money is low and the car keys are lost, a young girl and her siblings console their depressed dad by sharing their own technique for cheering up and finding missing items: see what's under the cushions. Sure enough, a magical storehouse of wonderments emerges from an armchair, and the girl describes the mayhem in infectious rhymes: "Some hairy string and a diamond ring . . . pineapple peel and a conger eel." Children may need help with some of the vocabulary (" drake" and " docket, "for example), but the wild assortment of objects, which include a pirate and a "lion with curls," will easily delight, as will the cacophonous, sunny, paint-and-paper collages of tea-drinking creatures, the comically stressed-out dad, and the cheerful kids. Expect lots of chanting along to the marching refrain ("Down the back of the chair") and phrases such as "a skink, a skunk, a skate, a ski."(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2006, American Library Association.)