“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 coming to pay you a call! He wears a hat with a tassel and a polka-dot tie - and he juggles and bounces and dances with bears, bison, baboons, kangaroos and even dinosaurs. He's wonderful and amazing - so watch out for him, and watch carefully - because he only appears every 500 years!

This magical, fantastical poem, full of Mahy's signature wordplay and joie de vivre, is brilliantly matched by the humour and energy of Polly Dunbar's illustrations.