From the Sidewalk: Bayus on Shel Silverstein

GoTryke contributor Beth Ann Bayus takes it to the sidewalk.

There are books in my house that I don’t want there, a fact I was reminded of the other day as I was switching my daughter’s clothes from winter to summer and came across Shel Silverstein’s “Runny Babbit” in an empty drawer. I’d forgotten that I had banished it there more than a year ago. (Why I didn’t just throw it out all together probably stems from my mother’s constant reminders growing up that “Books are our friends,” so kicking even a book I don’t like to the curb seems somehow unholy.)

We received “Runny Babbit” as part of a Shel Silverstein book collection at our baby shower (http://www.shelsilverstein.com/html/books.asp). I remember opening it along with “The Giving Tree,” Where the Sidewalk Ends” and “A Giraffe and a Half,” and wondering what kid they would appeal to since they were all in black and white. However, once my daughter was actually born, I, like many first-time parents, found myself searching for toys, books—anything in black and white to stimulate her developing baby brain. Before I knew what was happening, I was propping up “A Giraffe and a Half” in front of her yet-to-focus-completely eyes, reading the irritating text over and over simply because the pictures held her gaze for so long. I must confess I skipped many sections because the constant repetition of the previous pages’ contents drove me crazy. Like a bad game of “Telephone,” the text kept building and building on the previous page to the point of irritation, so as soon as my daughter was out of the “black and white” stage, I put that book to the bottom of the pile, hoping she’d forget about it, (which, thankfully, for the most part, she has).

On the other hand, “Runny Babbit” never made it to any pile and, instead, suffered the cruel fate of solitary confinement in the top dresser drawer after not even a full read through. I don’t know how it ends, nor do I care. I’m sure some kids find mixed up syntax like “Runny fad a hamily, matter of fact, he had a sother and two bristers, a dummy and a mad” funny, but I have no idea how any parent with a child in the early stages of language development could in good conscience read this to them. Besides the fact that I really don’t want to be called “dummy” instead of “mummy,” it’s akin to feeding them Twinkies, if you ask me. Sure, they may like the fluffy filling, but it’s as toxic to their little bodies as this book is to the left hemispheres of their little brains. If parents believe some of the experts and fear the potential for dyslexia lurking at every turn of a page, why on earth would they actually take a chance and expose their child to anything less than perfect examples of language? The word flip-flops may be cute, perhaps. Entertaining and enticing, even. But so is a baby lion cub, and no parent in their right mind would ever dream of placing that in their child’s tender pink hands, now would they? Not willing to take the risk of legitimizing juxtaposed language, our copy disappeared to the aforementioned drawer before we finished “The Funny Bamily” page.

And as much as “Where the Sidewalk Ends” contains some really, really wonderful poetry with encouraging and heart-warming messages, it, too, has its dark side. Read “For Sale,” in which Shel suggests it’s okay to sell people or “The Googies Are Coming,” which tells of old people who buy little children and take them away, and even the most fun-loving parent has to agree that these are messages better saved for older kids (like, maybe 25?), if they’re ever conveyed at all. My daughter and I still read this book regularly, but I censor these and a few other poems in it, (like “True Story” which ends with the line “I died.” and “Skinny” who gets washed down the bathtub drain and out of sight) without experiencing a millisecond of guilt. I just can’t bring myself to deprive her of the brilliance of poems like “Listen to the Mustn’ts,” and “The Garden,” just because there are a few (really) bad apples in the bunch. So until she can figure out the gems from the junk, I’m quite comfortable in my role as story time Stalin.

So that leaves us with just one true survivor in our Silverstein collection: “The Giving Tree.” While I’m still not a huge fan of the stark black and white line drawings, (and I have to admit, I sometimes find the overall theme a tad depressing depending on the time of the month), it is nonetheless a book that exemplifies our lives as parents—namely, we will give, and give, and give and give a little more for our children until there is literally nothing left of us. And while some may think that would make us unhappy, there is no greater joy than doing so. I live for the day I catch my daughter with a pocket knife in the park near our house, carving “ME + T” into the bark of one of the massive oak trees growing there, knowing she gets one of life’s most important lessons – - self-sacrifice. To witness that, I may even get over the super scary picture of Shel on the book’s back cover.

Tagged as: books, Giving Tree, Kids and Teens, Parenting, Shel Silverstein, Where the Sidewalk Ends