Falling Up

From Kirkus Reviews Well, finally. In this long-overdue follow-up to A Light In The Attic (1981), Silverstein once again displays the talent for wordplay and idea-play that keeps his poetry evergreen. In bumptious verse that seldom runs more than three or four stanzas, he introduces a gallery of daffy characters, including the Terrible Toy-Eating Tookle, a hamburger named James, blissfully oblivious Headphone Harold, and the so-attractive folk attending the ``Rotten Convention''--``Mr. Mud and the Creepin' Crud/And the Drooler and Belchin' Bob,'' to name but a few. The humor has become more alimentary with the years, but the lively, deceptively simple art hasn't changed a bit. Its puzzled-looking young people (with an occasional monster or grimacing grown-up thrown in) provide visual punchlines and make silly situations explicit; a short ten-year-old ``grows another foot''--from the top of his head--and a worried child is assured that there's no mouse in her hair (it's an elephant). Readers chortling their way through this inspired assemblage of cautionary tales, verbal hijinks, and thoughtful observations, deftly inserted, will find the temptation to read parts of it aloud irresistible. (index) (Poetry. 7+) -- Copyright ©1996, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved. Product Description From New York Times bestselling author Shel Silverstein, the classic creator of Where the Sidewalk Ends, A Light in the Attic, and Every Thing On It, comes a wondrous book of poems and drawings. Filled with unforgettable characters like Screamin’ Millie; Allison Beals and her twenty-five eels; Danny O'Dare, the dancin' bear; the Human Balloon; and Headphone Harold, this collection by the celebrated Shel Silverstein will charm young readers and make them want to trip on their shoelaces and fall up too! So come, wander through the Nose Garden, ride the Little Hoarse, eat in the Strange Restaurant, and let the magic of Shel Silverstein open your eyes and tickle your mind. And don't miss Runny Babbit Returns, the new book from Shel Silverstein! From Publishers Weekly All the things that children loved about A Light in the Attic and Where the Sidewalk Ends can be found in abundance in this eclectic volume, Silverstein's first book of poetry in 20 years. By turns cheeky and clever and often darkly subversive, the poems are vintage Silverstein, presented in a black-and-white format that duplicates his earlier books. Like Roald Dahl, Silverstein's cartoons and poems are humorously seditious, often giving voice to a child's desire to be empowered or to retaliate for perceived injustice: one child character wields a "Remote-a-Dad" that will instantly control his father, and another dreams of his teachers becoming his students so that when they talk or laugh in class, he can "pinch 'em 'til they [cry]." The poems focus on the unexpected-a piglet receives a "people-back ride" and Medusa's snake-hair argues about whether to be coifed in cornrows or bangs. Sometimes the art traffics in gross-out, as when William Tell gets an arrow through his forehead or a cartoon character sticks carrots in his sockets because he's heard that carrots are good for his eyes. Although some parents and teachers may cringe at such touches, Silverstein's anti-establishment humor percolates as he lampoons conventions (the stork not only brings babies but "comes and gets the older folks/ When it's their time to go"), or discards decorum (a small gardener zips up his pants after watering the plants "that way"). No matter that the author's rhythms and rhymes can be sloppy, or that his annoying insistence on leavin' off the endin' to his ING's seems artificially folksy, Silverstein's ability to see the world from, as he says, "a different angle" will undoubtedly earn this book a wide audience. All ages. Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc. From School Library Journal Grade 3 Up?Fifteen years after A Light in the Attic (1981) and 22 years after Where the Sidewalk E