Where the Sidewalk Ends

Where the Sidewalk Ends By Shel Silverstein

For my first poetry choice, I decided to return to a collection from my childhood that has become a classic, Where the Sidewalk Ends by Shel Silverstein.  As a child of the decade in which it was published, my initial reaction to the drawings and poems is an affectionate, "They are so 70s!"  It was a time in which children were being urged to be themselves (anyone remember "Free to be You & Me"???) and that children's literature was moving away from the idealized stories and images of the 1950s and 60s.  However, Silverstein's poems remain as relevant and engaging to students in 2012 as they did in 1979 when I discovered the book. 

What is it that makes these poems so timelessly engaging to children?  First of all, they are funny, imaginative, silly & ridiculous in a wonderful way that children love.  Everyday actions and objects are twisted into crazy situations, such as the boy who watched so much TV that he actually turns into a TV in "Jimmy Jet and his TV Set". Silverstein knows just how to tickle a kid's funny bone with the gross out factor of "Sarah Cynthia Sylvia Stout Will Not Take the Garbage Out" while also creating poems that every kid can relate to such as "Sick", in which a child is terribly ill until he realizes that he doesn't have to go to school.  Silverstein uses rhyme, alliteration, consonance and onomatopoeia to create a rhythm in each poem that stays in the reader's head.  To this day, a July 4th does not pass without his poem "The Fourth" coming into my mind:

Oh

CRASH!

my

BASH!

it's 

BANG!

the 

ZANG!

Fourth

WHOOSH!

of 

BAROOM!

July

WHEW!

Not only does he use onomatopoeia that reminds the reader of every fireworks display that they have seen, but also creates a concrete image in the way that he has placed the words, which brings to mind a firecracker shooting to the sky (Tunnell et. al, 98).

I believe that what sets apart Silverstein's collection apart are the moments in which his poems urge readers to think or to break out of the norms of expected thought.  In "Magic", he points out that "...the magic I have known/I've had to make myself".  In "Colors", he challenges readers to look past outward appearances and discover the uniqueness of each soul.  "Listen to the Mustn'ts" points out to the reader that, while the world may seem to be constantly saying no, possibilities are actually endless.  By spreading his message of a world that is full of imagination, acceptance and possibilities in the form of poems that speak to children, he manages to avoid the heavy-handedness into which less effective children's literature may stray.

I think that Where the Sidewalk Ends would be wonderful for 2nd graders through adults :)

Work Cited: Tunnell, Michael O., Jacobs, James S., Young, Terrell A., Bryan, Gregory. Children's Literature, Briefly. Boston: Pearson, 2012. Print.