Where the Sidewalk Ends
by Shel Silverstein
Poetry, Classics, Fiction, Humor, Young-Adult, Picture-Books
Come in… for where the sidewalk ends, Shel Silverstein’s world begins. Shel Silverstein, the New York Times bestselling author of The Giving Tree, A Light in the Attic, Falling Up, and Every Thing On It, has created a poetry collection that is outrageously funny and deeply profound. You’ll meet a boy who turns into a TV set, and a girl who eats a whale. The Unicorn and the Bloath live there, and so does Sarah Cynthia Sylvia Stout who will not take the garbage out. It is a place where you wash your shadow and plant diamond gardens, a place where shoes fly, sisters are auctioned off, and crocodiles go to the dentist. Shel Silverstein’s masterful collection of poems and drawings stretches the bounds of imagination and will be cherished by readers of all ages.
Recommendations from Common Sense Media
Age Recommendation: 6+
What Parents Need to Know:
Parents need to know that Where the Sidewalk Ends is a beloved collection of humorous poems and drawings first published by Shel Silverstein (The Giving Tree) in 1974. Some poems are a bit macabre — a skinny boy who disappears down the bathtub drain, a crocodile with a toothache who chomps a sadistic dentist, and so on. But there’s compassion and morality in here too, leavened with comic mayhem. Great as a read aloud for pre-readers, a book for beginning readers, and a surefire hit with third and fourth graders who get a kick out of reading and reciting the many funny poems.
Educational Value: 3/5
Where the Sidewalk Ends is a terrific introduction to the breadth and diversity of poetry. There are short poems and long ones, rhyming and non-rhyming verses, epigrams, and visual poems.
Positive Messages: 2/5
Positive Role Models: 2/5
Violence & Scariness: 1/5
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