Where the Sidewalk Ends

Where the Sidewalk Ends is Shel Silverstein's first collection of poems and drawings. It was first published in 1974. The collection begins with an "Invitation."

If you are a dreamer, come in,

If you are a dreamer, a wisher, a liar,

A hope-er, a pray-er, a magic bean buyer...

If you're a pretender, come sit by my fire

For we have some flax-golden tales to spin.

Come in!

Come in!

After that, it's one fabulous poem after another. Most are accompanied with Shel Silverstein's drawings. I remembered reading his poems as a child and received this 30th Anniversary Edition as a graduation gift. An added bonus in this edition is 12 new poems and illustrations. The poems don't collectively tell a story, but do take the imagination on a wild journey.

Many of Shel Silverstein's poems are humorous, but many are profound as well. This mixture makes for a great collection of quality poetry. For example, in the poem "The Search," the poet searches for a pot of gold but wonders what to look for once the search is over. In "Merry..." the poet points out that no one's talking brotherhood on March 25th. My descriptions don't do these poems justice, they're definitely worth the read.

His humorous poems are worth looking into as well. In "The Crocodile's Toothache," the dentist pulls out an extra tooth and the dentist says what's one more tooth. Then the the crocodile swallowed the dentist. "But what's one dentist, more or less?" "Jimmy Jet and His TV Set" is a funny poem about how a boy turns into a television.

Some poems work well for group recitation, and others feature repetition and lines that lend themselves to guessing and filling in the blank. The poem "What a Day" can be changed to "What a ________(anything)" and the blank words would have to rhyme with the title word in the blank. Some of the poems can be used to integrate other content areas. The poem "Sarah Cynthia Slyvia Stout Who Would Not Take the Garbage Out" can be used to discuss ecology and waste and consequences of not taking care of the environment. The poem could be the hook for the unit.

It is important to mention that Shel Silverstein has done black and white pencil drawings to accompany most of the poems. These cartoons help to give faces to some of the characters and explanations to some rhymes in the poetry. I definitely think they add to the poems.

I hope I've convinced you to take a look at the poetry of Shel Silverstein!