I’d like to give a plug for Shel Silverstein’s book, Where The Sidewalk Ends, in case you haven’t read it.
It’s a delightfully witty and inventive collection of humorous poems and drawings by the celebrated author of The Giving Tree, A Light In The Attic, and many other books.
This is one book that keeps the attention of both my seven-year-old granddaughter and her four-year-old sister at the same time. They both love the clever plays on words, the taste of the absurd, the silly drawings.
Many of the poems read like a joke, with a punch line at the end. Others read like a very short story. Some read like a song. (Silverstein was a successful song writer too; he wrote Johnny Cash’s big hit, A Boy Named Sue, and many others.)
The poems are mostly short, and there are hundreds of them, so you can read as many or as few as you like at bedtime. A great way to end the day.
Just to give you a flavor, here are brief descriptions of some of the poems:
- A piece of sky falls into the author’s soup and makes it delicious
- An author writes a poem about being eaten by a Boa Constrictor
- A boy tries to sell his little sister, but no one will buy
- One poem imagines what it would be like if you were only one inch tall
- A poem about an invisible boy in an invisible house
- A poem about the dirtiest man in the world
- A poem about how to make a hippopotamus sandwich
- A poem written on the neck of a running giraffe
Check it out!
