Product Description

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 …

Come in … for where the sidewalk ends, Shel Silverstein’s world begins. 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 is at once outrageously funny and profound.

Notable Children's Books of 1974 (ALA)
1985 Notable Children's Recording (BL)
Outstanding Children's Books of 1974 (NYT)
1988 Choices (Association of Booksellers for Children)
Notable Titles of 1974 (NYTBR)
1981 Michigan Young Readers' Award
1984 George C. Stone Center for Children's Books (Claremont, CA) "Recognition of Merit" Award

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Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #16189 in Books
• Published on: 1974-11-20
• Released on: 1974-11-20
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 176 pages

Features

• ISBN13: 9780060256678
• Condition: NEW
• Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
• Click here to view our Condition Guide and Shipping Prices

Amazon.com Review
Shel Silverstein shook the staid world of children's poetry in 1974 with the publication of this collection, and things haven't been the same since. More than four and a half million copies of Where the Sidewalk Ends have been sold, making it the bestselling children's poetry book ever. With this and his other poetry collections (A Light in the Attic and Falling Up), Silverstein reveals his genius for reaching kids with silly words and simple pen-and-ink drawings. What child can resist a poem called "Dancing Pants" or "The Dirtiest Man in the World"? Each of the 130 poems is funny in a different way, or touching ... or both. Some approach naughtiness or are a bit disgusting to squeamish grown-ups, but that's exactly what kids like best about Silverstein's work. Jim Trelease, author of The New Read-Aloud Handbook, calls this book "without question, the best-loved collection of poetry for children." (Ages 4 to 10)

Review
"A zesty collection of humorous light verse." -- SLJ.

"An ideal book for teachers to have handy . . . If you want to ungloom your day, start Where the Sidewalk Ends." -- Reading Teacher.

The Acrobats
Afraid Of The Dark
Alice
The Bagpipe Who Didn't Say No
Band-aids
Bang-klang
The Battle
Benjamin Bunnn
The Bloath
Boa Constrictor
Captain Hook
Chester
Colors
The Crocodile's Toothache
Dancing Pants
The Dirtiest Man In The World
Double-tail Dog
Drats
Dreadful
Early Bird
The Edge Of The World
Eighteen Flavors
Enter This Deserted House
The Farmer And The Queen
Fish?
Flag
The Flying Festoon
For Sale
Forgotten Language
The Fourth
Fred?
The Garden
The Generals
The Gypsies Are Coming
Hat
Hector The Collector
Helping
Homemade Boat
Hug O' War
Hungry Mungry
I Must Remember
I Won't Hatch!
I'm Making A List
Ickle Me, Pickle Me, Tickle Me Too
If I Had A Brontosaurus
If The World Was Crazy
Instructions
Invention
Invisible Boy
Invitation
It's Dark In Here
Jimmy Jet And His Tv Set
Joey
Jumping Rope
Just Me, Just Me
The Land Of Happy
Lazy Jane
Lester
Listen To The Mustn'ts
The Little Blue Engine
The Long-haired Boy
The Loser
Love
Ma And God
Magic
Magical Eraser
Me And My Giant
Me-stew
Melinda Mae
Merry...
Minnow Minnie
My Beard
My Hobby
My Rules
No Difference
Oh Have You Heard
One Inch Tall
The One Wh Satyed
Ourchestra
Pancake?
Paul Bunyan
Peanut-butter Sandwich
Pirate Captain Jim
The Planet Of Mars
Point Of View
Poor Angus
Rain
The Razor-tailed Wren
Recipe For A Hippopotamus Sandwich
Ridiculous Rose
Rudy Felsh
Santa And The Reindeer
Sarah Cynthia Sylvia Stout Would Not Take The Garbage Out
The Search
Shadow Wash
Sick
The Silver Fish
Skinny
Sky Seasoning
Sleeping Sardines
Smart
Snowman
Spaghetti
Standing
Stone Telling
Thumbs
Tight Hat
The Toucan
Traffic Light
Tree House
True Story
Two Boxes
The Unicorn
Upstairs
Us
Warning
What A Day
What's In The Sack
Where The Sidewalk Ends
Who
Wild Boar
With His Mouth Full Of Food
Won't You?
The Worst
The Yipiyuk
-- Table of Poems from Poem Finder®

About the Author
"And now, children, your Uncle Shelby is going to tell you a story about a very strange lion -- in fact, the strangest lion I have ever met." So begins one of Shel Silverstein's very first children's books, Lafcadio, the Lion Who Shot Back. It's funny and sad and has made readers laugh and think ever since it was published in 1963.

It was followed the next year by two other books. The first, The Giving Tree, is a moving story about the love of a tree for a boy. In an interview published in the Chicago Tribune in 1964, Shel talked about the difficult time he had trying to get the book published. "Everybody loved it, they were touched by it, they would read it and cry and say it was beautiful. But . . . one publisher said it was too short . . . ." Some thought it was too sad. Others felt that the book fell between adult and children's literature and wouldn't be popular. It took Shel four years before Ursula Nordstrom, the legendary editor at Harper Children's books, decided to publish it. She even let him keep the sad ending, Shel remembered, "because life, you know, has pretty sad endings. You don't have to laugh it up even if most of my stuff is humorous." Ultimately both adults and children embraced The Giving Tree.

Shel returned to humor that same year with A Giraffe and a Half.

If you had a giraffe . . .
and he stretched another half . . .
you would have a giraffe and a half . . .

is how it starts and the laughter builds to the most riotous ending possible.

Shel's first collection of poems and drawings, Where the Sidewalk Ends, appeared in 1974. It opens with this 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!

Shel invited children to dream and dare to try the impossible, from making a hippopotamus sandwich to drawing the longest nose in the world, to writing about eighteen flavors of ice cream and Sarah Cynthia Sylvia Stout who wouldn't take the garbage out.

With his second collection of poems and drawings, A Light in the Attic, in 1981, Shel asked his readers to turn the light on in their attics, to put something silly in the world, and not to be discouraged by the Whatifs.

WHATIF
Last night, while I lay thinking here,
Some whatifs crawled inside my ear
And pranced and partied all night long
And sang their same old Whatif song:
Whatif I'm dumb in school?
Whatif they've closed thw swimming pool?
Whatif I get beat up?
Whatif there's poison in my cup? . . .

Instead he urges readers to catch the moon or invite a dinosaur to dinner -- to have fun! School Library Journal not surprisingly called A Light in the Attic "exuberant, raucous, rollicking, tender, and whimsical." Children everywhere have agreed and Shel's books are now published in 30 different languages.

Yet Shel did not set out to write and draw for children. As he told Publishers Weekly in 1975, "When I was a kid . . . I would much rather have been a good baseball player or a hit with the girls. But I couldn't play ball, I couldn't dance. . . . So I started to draw and write. I was lucky that I didn't have anyone to copy, be impressed by. I had developed my own style."

He grew up in Chicago and created his first cartoons for the adult readers of Pacific Stars and Stripes, when he was a G.I. in Japan and Korea in the 1950s. He also learned to play the guitar and to write songs, including "A Boy Named Sue" for Johnny Cash and "The Cover of the Rolling Stone" sung by Dr. Hook. He performed his own songs on a number of albums and wrote others for friends, including his last in 1998, "Old Dogs," a two-volume set with country stars Waylon Jennings, Mel Tillis, Bobby Bare, and Jerry Reed. In 1984, Silverstein won a Grammy Award for Best Children's Album for Where the Sidewalk Ends -- "recited, sung and shouted" by the author. He was also an accomplished playwright, including the 1981 hit, "The Lady or the Tiger Show." He and David Mamet each wrote a play for Lincoln Center's production of "Oh, Hell," and they later co-wrote the 1988 film, "Things Change," which Mr. Mamet also directed. A frequent showcase for Shel's plays, the Ensemble Studio Theatre of New York produced Shel's "The Trio" in their 1998 Marathon of one-act plays.

Yet Shel Silverstein will perhaps always be best-loved for his extraordinary books. His latest collection, and his last book to be published before he sadly passed away in 1999 ... was Falling Up (1996). Like his other books, it is filled with unforgettable characters such as Screaming Millie who "screamed so loud it made her eyebrows steam." Then there are Danny O'Dare the dancing bear, the Human Balloon and Headphone Harold, and a host of others.

Shel was always a believer in letting his work do the talking for him. So come, wander through the Nose Garden, ride the little Hoarse, and let the magic of Shel Silverstein open your eyes, tickle your mind, and show you a new world.

NEW WORLD
Upside-down trees swingin' free,
Busses float and buildings dangle:
Now and then it's nice to see
The world -- from a different angle.

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Customer Reviews

Funny and Uplifting. Great Poems for ALL Ages!
I remember this book in the second grade! Wow, that was a long time ago. I remember enjoying the poems very much. Well, I stumbled upon this book a few weeks ago and decided to read them again. It had been quite some time. I still enjoyed it just as much as when I was little, if not more. "Where the Sidewalk Ends" is a literary treat for all ages.

The poems are funny and sincere at the same time. I really enjoyed each and every poem. The drawings are also really good. Just to give you a little taste of my Silverstein's work, here's the very first poem I heard from this book when I was little called, "Hat." And it goes a little something like this:

Teddy said it was a hat,
So I put it on.
Now Dad is saying, "Where the heck's
the toilet plunger gone?"

That's only a SMALL taste of the wonders you will find in this book. My other favorites are "Hat," "Dancing Pants," "I Must Remember," "Warning," "Who," and "The Land of Happy." I'm sure there are many more, but that's all I can think of right now. Bottom line: EVERY poem is great.

Although this is really great for kids, I think this is something EVERYONE would enjoy. Young or old, "Where the Sidewalk Ends" by Shel Silverstein is a fine read. One of my favorites.

(If you liked this one, check out "A Light in the Attic." Very good book as well.)

Come meet Sarah Cynthia Sylvia Stout...
Would you like to meet Sarah Cynthia Sylvia Stout who would not take the garbage out? Or Dirty Dan, the world's dirtiest man? Accept Shel Silverstein's invitation to come inside his delightful book full of outrageous poems and drawings. The unpredictable and humorous actions of each crazy character grabs readers' attention, keeping them engrossed in each poem, and craving for more. Elementary school-aged children will fall over laughing at Peggy Ann McKay's desperate attempt to avoid school, claiming, "I have the measles and the mumps, a gash, a rash, and purple bumps. My mouth is wet, my throat is dry, I'm going blind in my right eye." Silverstein's use of rhyme and nonsense verse combined with his constant humor captures the reader. His simple pen-and-ink drawings add to the imagery presented in each poem. The reader not only sees, but feels lazy Jane's dry mouth as she waits for it to rain. The application of alliteration, assonance, and consonance makes each poem a delight to read out loud; "For I've been down to the edge of the world, sat on the edge where the wild wind whirled." Some poems not only depict an array of humorous characters, but also create touching moments and offers good advice. Silverstein suggests playing hug o' war, rather than tug o' war, and assures young readers that, "Anything can happen, child, ANYTHING can be." Children ages nine to twelve will enjoy reading these well crafted poems that portray both ludicrous and poignant messages.

**** One of the Best Books of All Time!!! ****
One of the best books of all time -- What more needs to be said? This is truly the most memorable book of my childhood. Smile after smile .... memory after memory. I agree with the reviewer here who says that "No child should grow up without this book!" ... It's fun to read, and makes some really good points about life!! Definitely a MUST HAVE at ANY age!!! Enjoy!