Where the Sidewalk Ends: poems and drawings

Review also includes:

A Light in the Attic: poems and drawings, 978-0714530963

These two collections were first published in 1974 and 1981 and they have more than withstood the test of time. Silverstein believed in the symbiotic nature of word and image and would not allow his verse to be illustrated by anyone else; reading these collections tells you why. The relationship between illustration and poem makes these books very special. His black and white drawings echo and complement the poems which can be funny, cautionary, serious and sometimes surreal. Silverstein’s subjects and thoughts are everything and everyone under the sun, plus a few more. There’s the ‘Skin Stealer’: ‘This evening I unzipped my skin / And carefully unscrewed my head, / Exactly as I always do / When I prepare myself for bed.’ There’s the baby bat who ‘screamed out in fright, / Turn on the dark, / I’m afraid of the light.’ But, there is also the place ‘Where the Sidewalk Ends’ ‘And before the street begins, / And there the grass grows soft and white, / And there the sun burns crimson bright, / And there the moon-bird rests from his flight / To cool in the peppermint wind.’

One, and preferably both, of these poetry books should be part of the canon of children’s poetry.