I Am Not a Chair!

Grab the best seat in the house with this funny, touching picture book about a giraffe who keeps being mistaken for a chair!

From the acclaimed author-illustrator of There’s a Giraffe in My Soup comes a curious tale about finding one’s courage and standing up for oneself. Full of vibrant and playful illustrations and hilariously absurd logic, kids will want to read it again and again.

Is there anything worse than being mistaken for a chair?

Maybe being sat on by a stinky skunk?

Or smooshed by two hapless hippos?

Or—worst of all—cornered by a hungry lion?

What’s a poor giraffe to do when no one seems to notice that he is not standing there just to be sat upon? It’s a curious tale about finding your courage from acclaimed author-illustrator Ross Burach.

Praise for There’s a Giraffe in My Soup: “This has the carefully structured absurdity of an old vaudeville sketch, and kids will guffaw at the stream of unexpected animals and the dapper waiter’s alternating between obsequious apology and resentment (‘Can’t he just eat around it?’ he grumbles as he heaves the rejected whale-topped soup back into the kitchen).” - Bulletin of the Center for Children’s Books

Praise for There’s a Giraffe in My Soup: “A burst of pure silliness, this debut picture book is packed with large animals that pop out of one very alarmed little boy’s soup bowl. This boy, all dressed up, is seated in a restaurant and politely points out to the waiter that there’s a giraffe in his soup (we see the giraffe’s body in the soup, its neck extended all the way to the waiter on the facing page). The snooty waiter whisks away the offending bowl of soup and presents the boy with a new one, this time inhabited by an alligator. Each fresh tureen contains another surprise animal, including an elephant, a yak, an ostrich, a snake, and a koala bear. A final creature reveals the humorous cause of the mix-ups. The simple text contains rhymes and puns, and cartoonlike drawings appear against ample white space, making for a fun, uncluttered reading experience. Readers may also want to check out Rod Campbell’s Dear Zoo (1983) and Giles Andreae’s Giraffes Can’t Dance (2001).” - Booklist Online

“Rat-a-tat dialogue and freewheeling cartooning, featuring a bounty of googly eyes and goofy expressions, make this a great readaloud for anyone who’s ever felt objectified or misunderstood-a wide audience if ever there was one.” - Publishers Weekly

“An engaging bit of silliness that should find a home in storytime and picture book collections.” - School Library Journal

“Yeah, I’d say that’s a winner! I laughed more with this book than I have in a while. The ending, especially, was a perfect touch. The illustrations are, of course, what make this book (because, really, a giraffe would not look like a chair otherwise).” - Literary Hoots