Friday Favorites: Shel Silverstein

Rockabye

Rockabye baby, in the treetop.
Don't you know a treetop Is no safe place to rock?
And who put you up there,
And your cradle too?
Baby, I think someone down here's
Got it in for you.

Whimsical and strange, Silverstein's poetry has fascinated me since I was a kid. Most of the poems are quirky and funny, like the above, but there are others that can wrench your heart. Silverstein had a bit of Salinger in him. He was odd and a bit reclusive, but brilliant in his own way. When I was in eighth grade I performed some of his poems for a speech competition. The most difficult part was narrowing it down to only two poems.


The Missing Piece is another of Silverstein's books, but it's not a poetry collection. The story is about a little circle creature on a mission to find his missing piece. He tries many different shapes, but none of them fit. Finally he finds the perfect piece, it fits into the empty pie sliver in the circle. Hurray, now he is complete! But wait, it's a Silverstein story, so that's not really the ending. Instead, the circle now realizes that with his perfect piece he can no longer talk. It doesn't make his life perfect at all. He lets go of the piece and rolls on, happy again.

It's Silverstein's ability to bring elements of real life into children's stories that made me love his work. That's a tricky thing to do and he always managed to do it without making it too dark.

Here's one of my favorites...

The Little Boy and The Old Man
Said the little boy, "Sometimes I drop my spoon."
Said the little old man, "I do that too." The little boy whispered, "I wet my pants."
"I do that too," laughed the little old man.Said the little boy, "I often cry." The old man nodded, "So do I."
"But worst of all," said the boy, "it seems
Grown-ups don't pay attention to me." And he felt the warmth of a wrinkled old hand. "I know what you mean," said the little old man.