Tell Me the Day Backwards

Tell Me the Day Backwards by Albert Lamb
Illustraded by David McPhail

     "Let's play that game we used to play that summer" says little Timmy Bear to Mama Bear as he gets ready for bedtime.  The game is to retell the day backwards.  Timmy Bear starts going back through all the details of his adventure filled day.   The day ended with a relaxing picnic but soon we find out that Timmy had a scary incident:  Papa Bear had to rescue Timmy Bear from the river.  As he retells the story, always prompted by Mama Bear asking "what happened before that?", we are able to reconstruct the whole day.
     Tell Me the Day Backwards is an exciting and sweet tale that will have you and the kids wanting to play the game yourselves during bedtime.   The watercolor illustrations are beautiful.   The story provides  a great exercise to use in the classroom as well, not only the idea of telling a story backwards, but following the cause and effect pattern throughout the retelling.