Where The Sidewalk Ends

The rhyme schemes are juvenile, definitely made for kids, but these poems cover a wide variety of topics in an often-humourous manner. From pure silliness to tales of animal abusers getting comeuppance to a potential love interest fleeing from unacceptable demands and even one about a child discovering they're a ghost: there's a little something for most senses of humour.

Don't go into this expecting intellectual challenge or adult writing, and I think you'll have fun. As a child, I loved this book so much I frequently checked it out at the library and shared tales from it with anyone who'd listen. As an adult rereading this for a dose of nostalgia, I can see so many shades of the type of fiction I enjoy now - spooky, creepy, absurd, dark with a veneer of lightness...

It was a fun trip down memory lane. I admit it's not as good as I recall thinking, but I suspect that's because I've long since learned that not all poems need to rhyme and repetition isn't always clever. And with the target audience in mind, I think my rating is still quite fair.



(Content Warnings: This book is from the 1970s. There are a couple of illustrations which may make you squint and wonder, but I saw nothing overtly problematic. It also uses the words “gay” and “queer” in the contexts of “happy” and “strange” - no relation to sexuality, homophobia, etc. And there is, of course, the usual dose of jokes mentioning or revolving around weight. Most are in a fairly tame and harmless vein and some don't even shame the weight, just mention or portray it with art.)

Where The Sidewalk Ends is an abstract poetry book by Shel Silverstein. It deals with darker themes than one would expect for something considered “children's poetry”, including such themes as death, running away from home, giants eating other people, and many more. It is a great children's book because it is easy to read and flows very well, especially when reading out loud. It is important to keep children engaged in reading and this poetry book does this very well by implementing pictures into the poems. Some poems even required the use of certain pictures to make sense! It is very well written and is a poetry book that children will love.