illustrated by Rolf Klep & by E. Nesbit ‧ RELEASE DATE: Aug. 23, 1938
To most people this is a wholly new book, for the routine lists of E. Nesbit's books have not included it and it has been out of print for years. Now reissued in new dress, with 12 full page illustrations in color, by Rolf Klep. For those who find Lamb's Tales of Shakespeare a bit prosy as an introduction, this should serve, particularly for younger children. The following plays are retold: A Winter's Tale, Romeo and Juliet, The Tempest, A Midsummer Night's Dream, As You Like It, Twelfth Night, Hamlet, Pericles, Cymbeline, The Taming of the Shrew, and King Lear.
Pub Date: Aug. 23, 1938
ISBN: 089733485X
Page Count: 117
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: May 3, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 1938
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by Shel Silverstein illustrated by Shel Silverstein ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 7, 1982
A fat volume of small illustrated rhymes from Silverstein, who gets down to the level of kids' peeves, spooks, and sense of silliness often enough to score a collective hit. His cast includes a babysitter who thinks her job is to sit on the baby, a selfish child who prays that if he dies his toys will break so no one else can have them, a walrus with braces, and a man who thought he had wavy hair till he shaved it off and found he had a wavy head. There are some funny twists and take-offs on familiar rhymes and tales—such as a speculation on what would happen if Captain Blackbeard shaved, and a warning to the "Rockabye" baby that a treetop is no place to rock: "Baby, I think someone down here's got it in for you." There are also a number of typical twist endings, many of them lame or predictable—but then you can't expect 168 laughs in 168 pages. For undertow, there's the eyeball in the gumball machine (a sentinel reminder that "I" have had enough gumballs) and the fearful "Whatifs" that climb into "my" ear at night. All in all, bright and knowing nonsense.
Pub Date: Oct. 7, 1982
ISBN: 978-0-06-190585-8
Page Count: 192
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Aug. 26, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 1982
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by Shel Silverstein ; illustrated by Shel Silverstein
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by Shel Silverstein & illustrated by Shel Silverstein
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by Shel Silverstein & illustrated by Shel Silverstein
by Shel Silverstein & illustrated by Shel Silverstein ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 31, 1996
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+)
Pub Date: May 31, 1996
ISBN: 0-06-024802-5
Page Count: 176
Publisher: HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1996
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by Shel Silverstein ; illustrated by Shel Silverstein
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by Shel Silverstein & illustrated by Shel Silverstein
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