Falling Up
Shel Silverstein’s poems and line drawings tumble through impossible characters, wordplay and abrupt shifts from nonsense to unease. It is a collection to browse and perform rather than a continuous story.
- First published
- 1996
- Reading stage
- For older children
Reading this with your child
Choose by sound or shape
Begin with a poem whose title, drawing or page shape attracts the reader. Read it aloud twice, changing pace or speaker, and ask which performance makes the joke or turn clearest.
Let drawings revise the words
Cover a drawing, imagine the scene from the poem, then reveal Silverstein’s version. Note where the line art supplies a punch line, contradicts the speaker or extends beyond the last line.
Pause at crueler jokes
Some poems use threats, humiliation or bodies as comic material. A reader can skip a poem, name why it feels uncomfortable or compare the speaker’s attitude with the book’s invitation to laugh.
Compare before choosing: Both make typography, illustration and comic disruption part of reading, but Falling Up offers independent poems while Stinky Cheese Man fractures familiar tales inside one unruly book. View the comparison title →
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban
Shiloh