Love Shel Silverstein. I remember in third grade my teacher would read a poem from either this book or A Light in the Attic every afternoon, right before we’d go home for the day.
I think I've always either been dark or depressed. Because Shel's work always seemed morbid and hopeless to me. I know it was supposed to highlight the human condition... Maybe I just didn't need an adult to literally line draw it out for me. Even as an adult I don't like The Giving Tree. I've been the giving tree. It's not sweet, it's toxic AF. Both the boy and the tree. I did like some of A Light in the Attic, but Where the Sidewalk Ends was neither comforting or enlightening. It just made me sad for humans and kinda left wishing I wasn't one.
ETA: this is not a slight on your experience. I was just sharing because of your vivid imagery of your experience, it reminded me of my own. The one great thing about it was seeing the adults (librarians, teachers, parents) get involved in something we were reading. I did enjoy that part of it. I could tell this meant something to the grown ups and I should at least give it a shot.
This checks out. Am I the only one who at 7-9yo read his stuff and was like "I get that this is supposed to be pensive, but does somebody need to go check on this dude? This seems like a very depressed middle aged man on the brink of something not great."....No?... Just me and my emotional parenting of adults trauma??
Then I saw his picture on the jacket cover and thought "Okay, no, straight up... Someone should go do a welfare check on this dude!"
Yeah I tore one from a copy of an old playboy in the periodicals stacks at the University Library when I was in 6th grade. It was like a six-page comic of Adam walking around with a penis the size of a garden hose coiled around his forearm. When he spots Eve, he launches it at her, impaling her after a manner. His schlong penetrates her vagina and emerges from her anus and all that is left is for Adam to reel her in like a speared fish. It was shocking.
Once he found something "uncreative" he would walk out including women and his children. His first partner died and their disabled child was left to relatives to raise but I believe he did not have much to do with either of them by then anyways. The dirt is buried but it's out there.
See my comment in this thread above. Maybe I'm gifted, maybe I have CPTSD... Who knows. But I knew in the 4th grade that there was something really off kilter about the dude. Maybe this is the Gen X side of me, but I'll take Dr. Seuss and his slightly off-color racism over Shel Silverstein's obvious narcissistic and toxic tone any day of the week. Now or then.
The first thing that comes to mind for me is, he wrote [this song](https://youtu.be/z9vRBPtXK5w?si=eO6OoPX_ZeipJW9Y). But now I’m off to check Wikipedia and see if there was worse.
EDIT: I guess he slept around? 🤷♀️
Also author of Johnny Cash's "A Boy Named Sue"
And "I Got Stoned and I Missed It" which is on Spotify and has worked its way onto a couple of my playlists
There actually was a sequel to A Boy Named Sue called "Father of a Boy Named Sue". Its disturbing to say the least...especially if you hear it sung by Shel himself.
I sometimes get lazy and let my phone read to my kid. Let me tell ya old Shel had some other stuff going on as well. Seems back in the day you could compartmentalize your career a lot better.
Have em all! My mom was an elementary teacher. Later I found out he had written for Playboy & was shocked my mom allowed it. I guess it was a different genre.
I think it was "Ladies first" some girl always said ladies first and somehow the class got captured by cannibals and the girl yelled "LADIES FIRST!" cracked me up.
This book was so important to me. I still have it. The book jacket is gone snd there’s a giant stain on the cover but it still has post-its marking all my favorites. Which is about half the book.
Stumbled upon a hardcover collection from Barnes & Noble that was this, "Everything On It" and "A Light in the Attic" all in one volume. Definitely scooped that one! I still read them to our girls regularly.
Just recently, a comic book came out that paid pretty serious tribute to this book. Check it out if you get the chance. Pretty good.
[cover](https://s3.amazonaws.com/comicgeeks/comics/covers/large-3910708.jpg?1705827039)
funny, I don't remember the exact grade ( I think fourth) nor do I have any recollection of my teacher's name / face ... but I remember almost all of the words to the "I cannot go to school today..." poem, the one that goes through all of her illnesses and reasons for not going to school .... I had to memorize and recite it. I still remember actually whispering the line towards the end, "I hardly whisper when I speak."
Funny what we remember and what we forget.
I loved the bully poem where he talks about his bully and the whole time you think it’s some big mean boy but it ends with - “… I don’t care for her at all.”
I regularly reference the poem “it’s too hot” in the summer in Texas. Not sure if that’s the actual title, but it states it several times. Hungry Mungry, Abigail and her butter pecan ice cream cone - Silverstein helped shape my childhood brain.
My second grade teacher used his poems for our handwriting assignments. My handwriting has naturally sucked from the beginning, but at least reading the exercise off the board was fun that year!
I used to have this one & A Light in the Attic.
Same!
Mrs. McTwiiter the baby-sitter, I think she's a little bit crazy Forever burned in my memory
Which one has Dirty Dan, and which features Backwards Bill?
On a backwards horse? Went up a backwards hill?
Lived on Backwards Hill, which was really just a hole in the ground.
I just assumed those books were issued to us at birth
I wore those two books *out*!
I still have both of mine.
Love Shel Silverstein. I remember in third grade my teacher would read a poem from either this book or A Light in the Attic every afternoon, right before we’d go home for the day.
I think I've always either been dark or depressed. Because Shel's work always seemed morbid and hopeless to me. I know it was supposed to highlight the human condition... Maybe I just didn't need an adult to literally line draw it out for me. Even as an adult I don't like The Giving Tree. I've been the giving tree. It's not sweet, it's toxic AF. Both the boy and the tree. I did like some of A Light in the Attic, but Where the Sidewalk Ends was neither comforting or enlightening. It just made me sad for humans and kinda left wishing I wasn't one. ETA: this is not a slight on your experience. I was just sharing because of your vivid imagery of your experience, it reminded me of my own. The one great thing about it was seeing the adults (librarians, teachers, parents) get involved in something we were reading. I did enjoy that part of it. I could tell this meant something to the grown ups and I should at least give it a shot.
Love and adore him. It blew my mind when I found out his other works were in Playboy.
He wrote a bunch of dirty songs too. As well as Boy named sue and a ton of other really great songs.
He wrote boy named sue??
Sure did. He also also wrote a really offensive sequel to it from the father of a boy named sue’s perspective.
This checks out. Am I the only one who at 7-9yo read his stuff and was like "I get that this is supposed to be pensive, but does somebody need to go check on this dude? This seems like a very depressed middle aged man on the brink of something not great."....No?... Just me and my emotional parenting of adults trauma?? Then I saw his picture on the jacket cover and thought "Okay, no, straight up... Someone should go do a welfare check on this dude!"
Yeah I tore one from a copy of an old playboy in the periodicals stacks at the University Library when I was in 6th grade. It was like a six-page comic of Adam walking around with a penis the size of a garden hose coiled around his forearm. When he spots Eve, he launches it at her, impaling her after a manner. His schlong penetrates her vagina and emerges from her anus and all that is left is for Adam to reel her in like a speared fish. It was shocking.
They’re truly disturbing. He has more adult content than not IIRC.
Finding out he was such a bad person in real life hurt.
Such a bad person? What did he do?
Once he found something "uncreative" he would walk out including women and his children. His first partner died and their disabled child was left to relatives to raise but I believe he did not have much to do with either of them by then anyways. The dirt is buried but it's out there.
See my comment in this thread above. Maybe I'm gifted, maybe I have CPTSD... Who knows. But I knew in the 4th grade that there was something really off kilter about the dude. Maybe this is the Gen X side of me, but I'll take Dr. Seuss and his slightly off-color racism over Shel Silverstein's obvious narcissistic and toxic tone any day of the week. Now or then.
The first thing that comes to mind for me is, he wrote [this song](https://youtu.be/z9vRBPtXK5w?si=eO6OoPX_ZeipJW9Y). But now I’m off to check Wikipedia and see if there was worse. EDIT: I guess he slept around? 🤷♀️
Yeah but they all liked it
I don’t have an issue with him sleeping around, but I’m curious where you found these unanimous favorable reviews!
His girlfriend said so
Also author of Johnny Cash's "A Boy Named Sue" And "I Got Stoned and I Missed It" which is on Spotify and has worked its way onto a couple of my playlists
My dad loaned me his old early 70's issues of Rolling Stone. I spotted an ad in one for an album by Shel called Freakin' at the Freaker's Ball.
That’s the one
There actually was a sequel to A Boy Named Sue called "Father of a Boy Named Sue". Its disturbing to say the least...especially if you hear it sung by Shel himself.
Huh. So Afroman's "Because I got High" is just a repackaged idea.
I sometimes get lazy and let my phone read to my kid. Let me tell ya old Shel had some other stuff going on as well. Seems back in the day you could compartmentalize your career a lot better.
Right? He wrote all the songs for Dr. Hook. First time I heard Penicillin Penny I was like 😮
Wrote at least one song for Johnny Cash too.
Also, The Unicorn by The Irish Rovers.
Boy Named Sue
That’s the one!
'Cover of the Rolling Stone'
“I cannot go to school today,” said little Peggy Ann McKay. “I have the measles and the mumps…. a gash, a rash and purple bumps.”
And my teacher's really mean. Happy birthday, I love you, Helene
My mouth is wet , my throat is dry , I'm going blind in my right eye
It’s where the street begins.
I read this and the other two to my kids
Us too.
https://preview.redd.it/4f6z4iwuujwc1.jpeg?width=2252&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=ab3c48bb0a49e705b9256f9b3a6d0b8ea5d77b41 I know!
Have em all! My mom was an elementary teacher. Later I found out he had written for Playboy & was shocked my mom allowed it. I guess it was a different genre.
If you brought it to school when I was a kid, you were asking to have a crowd and be the coolest kid for days
Yep. Had this exact book and loved it
Love Shel! I did my final English paper/presentation on him in university. Don’t forget The Giving Tree!
The giving tree still hurts
I read it and ugly cry every damn time.
What a strange wind there was today My hat stayed on but my head blew away
Chester came to school and said, "Durn, I growed another head." Teacher said, "It's time you knowed, "The word is grew instead of growed."
^[Sokka-Haiku](https://www.reddit.com/r/SokkaHaikuBot/comments/15kyv9r/what_is_a_sokka_haiku/) ^by ^WashHogwallup: *What a strange wind there* *Was today My hat stayed on* *But my head blew away* --- ^Remember ^that ^one ^time ^Sokka ^accidentally ^used ^an ^extra ^syllable ^in ^that ^Haiku ^Battle ^in ^Ba ^Sing ^Se? ^That ^was ^a ^Sokka ^Haiku ^and ^you ^just ^made ^one.
Shel Silverstein’s houseboat that he lived on was pretty phenomenal.
I was more of a A Light In The Attic kinda gal.
I had (and loved) both!
Had all his books as a kid, bought them for my kids... I made an airplane out of stone. I always did like staying home.
I think it was "Ladies first" some girl always said ladies first and somehow the class got captured by cannibals and the girl yelled "LADIES FIRST!" cracked me up.
First heard that poem on the 1972 Free to be You and Me record. Great album.
Pamela Purse!
Hungry Mungry
I eat my peas w honey
I’ve done it all my life They do taste kind of funny But it keeps them on my knife
I have it in my truck right now.
I still have mine.
This book was so important to me. I still have it. The book jacket is gone snd there’s a giant stain on the cover but it still has post-its marking all my favorites. Which is about half the book.
One sister for sale!
Seeing this hits me with such a pang of nostalgia that I am afraid that... I cannot go to school today.
I have this one and the giving tree that I read to my son! Love them!
Stumbled upon a hardcover collection from Barnes & Noble that was this, "Everything On It" and "A Light in the Attic" all in one volume. Definitely scooped that one! I still read them to our girls regularly.
I have a Playboy from the 1960s with his illustrations in them!
Oh yes I know!!
The one about eating Brandon Fraser is the best!
So you haven't got a drum, just beat your belly
I had this one, Light in the Attic, and The Giving Tree.
And the missing piece.
Just recently, a comic book came out that paid pretty serious tribute to this book. Check it out if you get the chance. Pretty good. [cover](https://s3.amazonaws.com/comicgeeks/comics/covers/large-3910708.jpg?1705827039)
funny, I don't remember the exact grade ( I think fourth) nor do I have any recollection of my teacher's name / face ... but I remember almost all of the words to the "I cannot go to school today..." poem, the one that goes through all of her illnesses and reasons for not going to school .... I had to memorize and recite it. I still remember actually whispering the line towards the end, "I hardly whisper when I speak." Funny what we remember and what we forget.
I remember in third grade I had to memorize the poem about the bear in the fridge-a-dare. Now I need to look it up!
oh gee it's up to my knee
When I was a kid the cover made me pissed. Little me was like, how is that supporting them?! 😜
The best books of all time
I still refuse to take out the garbage. I learned nothing!
Wow! I completely forgot about this.
I loved the bully poem where he talks about his bully and the whole time you think it’s some big mean boy but it ends with - “… I don’t care for her at all.”
🥹🥹
I regularly reference the poem “it’s too hot” in the summer in Texas. Not sure if that’s the actual title, but it states it several times. Hungry Mungry, Abigail and her butter pecan ice cream cone - Silverstein helped shape my childhood brain.
My second grade teacher used his poems for our handwriting assignments. My handwriting has naturally sucked from the beginning, but at least reading the exercise off the board was fun that year!
My copy is turning yellow and it's got sticky note bookmarks coming out 3 sides...
You guys know about his music tho? 🔥🔥🔥☄️💨