Hello Everyone,
In my advanced children’s literature class this summer, I was required to research the popular contemporary children’s poets. Below are my findings.
After canvassing an elementary library media specialist and some third grade students, I found Shel Silverstein to be the most widely read and enjoyed contemporary poet at the elementary school level. The library media special did say poetry is not heavily checked out by the students in her school, yet, when it is, Silverstein’s works are the ones that are used by the students. Where the Sidewalk Ends was the favorite of the third grade students I spoke with, after I listed some poets they maybe had experienced. When I first asked them who were their favorite poets, they promptly replied that they didn’t know any. Once I gave them a list of Shel Silverstein, Jack Prelutsky, and Bill Martin, Jr, Silverstein was their favorite. I have a slight previous connection with Silverstein’s works; my fourth grade student teaching mentor gave me a copy of Where the Sidewalk Ends with the signatures of the students inside the front cover, saying it is often a favorite among the older elementary students.
From examining several poems in Where the Sidewalk Ends: The Poems and Drawings of Shel Silverstein, I find myself laughing readily at the twists and small jokes within some of the individual poems, such as “My Rules” being a child’s marriage proposal with a funny answer (p. 74), and the general silliness of others, such as “The Hat,” in which a plunger is mistaken for a hat (p. 74). I was especially delighted to stumble across “Sick” among the pages, since it has always been one of my favorite poems from childhood, containing the elaborate excuses of a little girl as to why she cannot go to school, only to discover it is Saturday (p. 58-59). I almost memorized the entire poem as a child and never could remember the author, since I read it in a general child’s poetry anthology. Even though I have no siblings, I empathize with the annoyance of the speaker trying to sell his or her younger sister in “For Sale” (p. 52). Overall, Shel Silverstein has accomplished the feat of writing poetry for children than encompasses all the attitudes, feelings, and experiences of children; he “[explores] the tensions children might feel at home or school” and “probes the fault lines between self and other” (Hintz & Tribunella, 2013, p. 101). Knowing now that Shel Silverstein is the author of “Sick,” I love his poems even more than I had having recently grown in my appreciation of his work as a future librarian.
Enthusiastically,
Ms. Tyler
References
Hintz, C. & Tribunella, E. L. (2013). Reading children’s literature: A critical introduction. Boston, MA: Bedford/St. Martins.
Silverstein, S. (2014). Where the sidewalk ends: The poems & drawings of Shel Silverstein (40th anniversary edition). New York, NY: HarperCollins Publishers.
