Where the Sidewalk Ends: The Poems and Drawings of Shel Silverstein (25th Anniversary Edition Book & CD)

This is a great book full of great poetry. I first heard of Shel Siĺverstein through Dr Demento and his song 🎵 of one of Shel Siĺverstein poems Sarah Cynthia Sylvia Stout Would Not Take The Garbage Out. The liner notes on that cd 💿 said that the poem was also in his book Where The Sidewalk Ends which at the time ⏲️ I didn't get. Years later I found what turned out to be most of it on cď with poems like Eighteen Flavors Sister For Sale and many more. Crocodile Toothache was one of the funniest ones. I unfortunately lost that cd 💿 and was looking for another one when I found this book and immediately ordered it. It has all the poems from the cd 💿 and more like Santa And 🎅 The Reindeer my favorite of the ones that weren't on the cd and more. Like I said before this is a great book. You should get it.

WHERE THE SIDEWALK ENDS is a book of poems and illustrations by the amazing Shel Silverstein. I have read this book several times since childhood, have read it to my own child, and had my own child read it himself. This is the type of book that a reader can pick up flip to any page and then look up an hour later wondering where the time went.

Silverstein's work is very subversive in that he uses humor to mask serious themes. There is both innocence and complexity in each of the poetry vignettes.

Each time I read this book, I find something new in the poems.

This is an especially good book to read out loud to children because you can read as much or as little as your child can absorb. Eventually, your children can read the poems to you.

My current favorites are: It's Dark in Here (about being eaten by a lion), Listen to the Mustn'ts (about going beyond the negatives), Jimmy Jet and His TV Set (what happens to those who watch too much screen), Early Bird (advice for the bird and the worm), Hector the Collector (about beauty being in the eye of the beholder), Sarah Cynthia Slyvia Stout Would Not Take the Garbage Out (what happens to those who ignore the trash), Pirate Captain Jim (proving the adage that the least competent rise to the top), Hungry Mungry (what happens when someone doesn't stop eating).