![]() I remember the first time I saw a Shel Silverstein book. My friend, Sara Williams, had a copy of A Light in the Attic of her very own, and I was a tad bit jealous. Her mom was our 2nd grade teacher--our little, Catholic school only had one class per grade level. We read it, huddled together, and giggled with glee. The next poetry book that spurred that reaction was Alan Katz's Take Me Out of the Bathtub. By this time, I had started teaching, and sometimes the figurative language in poetry isn't as engaging for elementary-aged students as the more fun-loving ditties are. Aside from Silverstein, my students didn't exactly rush to the poetry books, until Katz's books came along. As we read Rhett Miller's No More Poems, my daughter and I took turns reading the stanzas of every poem. Just like when I was a 2nd grader, we sat, snuggled in my big chair together, giggling at the poems. She especially appreciated "Brotherly Love," since she has her own big brother/nemesis/BFF to contend with on a daily basis; afterwards, she rattled off her own version of an evil laugh. "Purple Pox" reads like a hat-tip to Silverstein's classic "Sick." "How to Play Baseball" starts out as cringe-worthy, but finishes with a comeuppance that could only have been more perfect if the kid's curveball had actually beaned the gruff coach in the head. The poems are twisted and subversive just enough to grab and delight kids searching for more poems in the Silverstein and Katz vein. Interestingly, author Rhett Miller has a musical background, not unlike Shel Silverstein who famously penned Johnny Cash's "A Boy Named Sue". He has spent his adult life playing in the band The Old 97's. He has also published other writings, including a diary he kept during the post-9/11 period, during which he and his future wife were living a few blocks away from the World Trade Center. To read more about this, visit the Here & Now radio show site for the story behind the diary.
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