Where the Sidewalk Ends The Poems & Drawings of Shel Silverstein

If you are a dreamer, a wisher, a liar, come in. If you are a hope-er, a pray-er, a magic bean buyer, come sit by the fire, for we have some flax-golden tales to spin. This is a place for pretenders, a world that exists just beyond the hard grey pavement of the everyday, where the rules of sense and science bend until they snap, leaving only the possible, the peculiar, and the preposterous.

Here, you might find yourself writing poems from inside a lion, where it's rather dark and the handwriting may not be too clear. You could meet Ickle Me, Pickle Me, and Tickle Me too, who went for a ride in a flying shoe and never returned to the world they knew. You'll learn the precarious art of the acrobat, hanging by your nose from a high-up trapeze, with only one rule to mind as you float through the breeze: Don't sneeze. Or perhaps you'll build a homemade boat, divine in its sides and back, though there is one small detail you may have forgot - the bottom.

Be warned, for this is also a land of consequences. Young Sarah Cynthia Sylvia Stout would not take the garbage out, and so it piled to the ceilings, broke through the wall, and stretched from New York to the Golden Gate, where poor Sarah met an awful fate. And little Jimmy Jet, who loved to watch his TV set, watched until his chin turned into a tuning dial and antennae grew out of his hair. Now, instead of him watching TV, we all sit around and watch him.

The characters you meet are a curious collection. There is Hector the Collector, who gathered bits of string, dolls with broken heads, and rusty bells that would not ring, loving them more than shining diamonds or glistening gold, only to have the silly, sightless people come and look and call it junk. You might even find a sister for sale, one crying and spying young sister for sale. “Do I hear a dollar? A nickel? A penny?” Oh, isn't there any one kid who will buy her? And then there is poor Captain Hook, who must always remember not to scratch his toes or pick his nose, and must be ever so careful when opening sardine cans.

This is a world seen from a different height. If you were only one inch tall, you'd ride a worm to school and a teardrop from a crying ant would be your swimming pool. You'd wear a thimble on your head and swing upon a spider's thread. Some have seen leprechauns and touched a troll, but here, all the magic you have known is the magic you've had to make yourself. You might even make friends with a giant who lives where the tall weeds grow, communicating through a secret scratch-tap code on his giant toe.

There is a place where the sidewalk ends and before the street begins, and there the grass grows soft and white, and there the sun burns crimson bright. Let us leave the place where the smoke blows black and the dark street winds and bends. We shall walk with a walk that is measured and slow, and watch where the chalk-white arrows go, for the children, they mark, and the children, they know the place where the sidewalk ends.

Here, you are told to listen to the MUSTN'TS, child, listen to the DON'TS, the IMPOSSIBLES, the WON'TS. But after you listen to the NEVER HAVES, you must listen close: Anything can happen, child, ANYTHING can be. You might see dinner from the turkey's point of view, or discover that the world is not round, but flat, for you have been to the edge and peeked right over. You might even find a pencil with a magical eraser, and if someone dares you to prove it's true, well - you can erase her.

So come and learn the forgotten language of the flowers and the gossip of the starlings. Meet the boy with hair so long he simply flew away, flapping past the courthouse and over the town, leaving all the jeering faces on the ground. See the snowman who bravely faced the sun, determined to see July. Find the chick who heard of pollution and war and decided he simply would not hatch. In this world of apples and kisses and shoes, of skinned knees and messy rooms, there are endless tales to spin, so long as you are a dreamer. Come in. Come in.