The Old Red Rocking Chair

Rating:
Summary: A GREAT story for kids about practical recycling!
Review: This amusing picture book is great to teach kids that not everything valuable is bought in a store. The old red rocking chair of the title is discarded with the garbage because, though perfectly usable, it is worn and does not match the owner's new blue sofa. It is claimed by a series of interesting people who each use it for a while and then discard it, as it becomes more and more thoroughly "used." Each owner enjoys it and eventually discards it. After it loses both arms, its back, and its rockers, it becomes a stool, its seat carefully covered with blue wool from a discarded coat. In the end it is bought at a yard sale by its original owner, who admires the stool because it matches her blue sofa!

The pictures in this book are wonderfully interesting and amusing, but unfortunately in the printing process some turned out rather dark. I suspect that is why this book did not get the attention it deserved when it was first published, and why it is now out of print. What a shame.

This is a great book for elementary teachers to use in a recycling unit, and for any family who has ever found and used something discarded by someone else!

Rating:
Summary: A GREAT story for kids about practical recycling!
Review: This amusing picture book is great to teach kids that not everything valuable is bought in a store. The old red rocking chair of the title is discarded with the garbage because, though perfectly usable, it is worn and does not match the owner's new blue sofa. It is claimed by a series of interesting people who each use it for a while and then discard it, as it becomes more and more thoroughly "used." Each owner enjoys it and eventually discards it. After it loses both arms, its back, and its rockers, it becomes a stool, its seat carefully covered with blue wool from a discarded coat. In the end it is bought at a yard sale by its original owner, who admires the stool because it matches her blue sofa!

The pictures in this book are wonderfully interesting and amusing, but unfortunately in the printing process some turned out rather dark. I suspect that is why this book did not get the attention it deserved when it was first published, and why it is now out of print. What a shame.

This is a great book for elementary teachers to use in a recycling unit, and for any family who has ever found and used something discarded by someone else!