“The man from the land of Fandango / Is coming to pay you a call. / With his tricolor jacket and polka-dot tie / And his calico trousers as blue as the sky / And his hat with a tassel and all.” Nonsense is a medium author Margaret Mahy is master of. This offering sparkles with a seemingly effortless stream of rollicking wordplay. The rhythm and rhyme make for an energetic outing describing amazing things that will happen when the man from the land of Fandango arrives on the scene. “And he only appears every five hundred years—So you’d better be home when he calls!” Polly Dunbar’s illustrations do a good job of reflecting the silliness and whimsy. (Ages 3–6)

"The man from the land of Fandango / Is given to dancing and dreams, / He comes in at the door like a somersault star / And he juggles with junkets and jam in a jar / And custards and caramel creams."

Two children paint Mr. Fandango to life, and together the trio has a tremendous adventure with baboons and bisons, dinosaurs and kangaroos! Polly Dunbar's textured, childlike illustrations reveal a playful imaginary world, and even the lines of type curve and tango. A bouncy, buoyant read-aloud for storytime.