It Could Always Be Worse? No! It Couldn't! I Am Not A Chair! by Ross Burach

ON GIRAFFE'S FIRST DAY IN THE JUNGLE, HE FELT SOMETHING WAS NOT RIGHT.

There was something on his back. Something heavy. Something VERY heavy.

It was Rhino.

All the other animals were sitting on normal  things--logs, rocks, tree stumps, clumps of grass--you know, jungle stuff.

Rabbit looks at Rhino, sitting on Giraffe's back.

"CAN I SHARE THAT CHAIR?" HE ASKED RHINO.

Giraffe looked at his back.

"I AM NOT A CHAIR!" HE YELLED.

Giraffe points out that he has ears, and eyes, a mouth, spots, and... pointing at his new little horns...

... "WHATEVER THESE THINGS ARE!"

But Giraffe gets no respect. What he gets is piled on by each one of the animals in turn, until he collapses. Big Hippo is the straw that breaks the... giraffe's back. Little Hippo tries to fix Big Hippo's "chair," but he puts him together all wrong. Now Giraffe's a roost for jungle birds!

"EEEEEENOUGH! I AM NOT A CHAIR!"

Hope returns as Giraffe spots a human driving by in his jungle Rover. Surely a human knows a giraffe when he sees one!

No, he doesn't. He snatches up Giraffe and plops him down in his house as an exotic TV chair.

Sheesh! Whoever said humans were the smartest species? Giraffe waits for the right moment and makes his escape.

Meanwhile, just down the jungle trail Lion is getting very hungry, and he's not the least bit timid about it.

"ROAR! THE NEXT ANIMAL I SEE WILL BE MY DINNER!"

WHOA! Maybe there are times, Giraffe decides, when looking just like a chair is a good thing, in Ross Burbach's latest, I Am Not a Chair! (Harper, 2017).  Burbach's silly story features growing improbabilities, one on top of the other, so to speak, with an even more nonsensical conclusion that will keep kids falling off their chairs as the giggles keep coming. Absurdity and sight gags reign supreme in Burback's second goofy giraffe tale, the companion to his popular There's a Giraffe in My Soup.