WHERE THE SIDEWALK ENDS by Shel Silverstein (1974)

Harper and Row; 166 pages; humor; ages 8 and up; ISBN: 06-025667-2.

This collection of dozens of Shel Silverstein poems and drawings has been a hit with children and parents alike for more than three decades, gently exploring the hopes, fears, and general pet peeves of multiple generations with rich, occasionally dark humor. Hate going to the dentist? So does Silverstein, it seems, based on the fate of one such tooth collector in his poem "The Crocodile's Toothache." What about taking out the garbage? Well, "Sarah Cynthia Sylvia Stout Would Not Take the Garbage Out," and her fate wasn't much better, though it certainly wasn't as bad as that of the baby in "Dreadful," who got eaten!

Silverstein's poems almost never fail to provoke at least a grin and will likely provoke much more if read aloud to an appreciative audience. Some of my favorites are "Warning," about the dangers of picking one's nose; "Peanut-Butter Sandwich"; and the self-explanatory "The Dirtiest Man in the World" ("The bedbugs that leap on me sing me to sleep"). My girlfriend and I just bought Where the Sidewalk Ends for my niece on her seventh birthday; I'm hoping she'll love Silverstein's poems just as much as I did when I was in the second grade.

For further reading, check out another collection of Silverstein poems, 1981's A Light in the Attic, or the recent posthumous release Every Thing on It.