43. Every Thing On It

Every Thing On It by Shel Silverstein (Harper) 2011

Genre

Poetry

Honors

School Library Journal Best Books of the Year, 2011

Review

A collection of unpublished poems and drawings by Shel Silverstein.  The poems are in his signature style.  His typically humorous poems often minutely explore a situation and take a surprising or funny turn at the end, as in "For The World's Record": "We made the world's longest hot dog, / And now that it's finally done, / We realize nobody's baked / The world's longest bun" (Silverstein, 2011, p. 39).  Many of the poems feature illustrations; occasionally these drawings are necessary for understanding the poem; other times they help set the mood.

Opinion

Reading this after the Prelutsky volume I've Lost My Hippopotamus, helped solidify precisely why Silverstein is the master.  The punchlines often come as unexpected turns at the poem's end (while many of Prelutsky's poems are premised upon listing as many silly scenarios as possible).  Also, Silverstein manages to slip in sentimental poems without having them feeling out of place such as "Wall Marks," which recounts the way the narrator's father uses a wall to measure the narrator's height; the end holds the emotional twist in describing the narrator's mother: "She says that it's my history, / But I don't understand at all, / Just why she cries each time she sees / Those scratchy marks there on the wall" (p. 27).  In addition to adding more emotional weight to the whole collection, this fragment shows how masterfully Silverstein uses line breaks.

Ideas

This would be a great volume for interesting children in poetry.  It would work well in a book talk or story time.  It would also be appropriate inspiration for a poetry writing workshop.

References

Silverstein, S. (2011). Every Thing On It. New York: Harper.