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I've been a huge fan of Shel Silverstein's since I discovered The Giving Tree when I was a kid. I always do a Silverstein booktalk with my middle schoolers because they're already familiar with his poetry and they love to learn that there's so much more to him. I start by letting them hear him read some poetry on an audio tape I have--usually Quick Trip or Little Abigail and the Beautiful Pony from A Light in the Attic. Silverstein's delivery and sound effects are just amazing! You can hear him read some of his poems on his website - www.shelsilverstein.com. I also show kids his website and spend some time playing around on it using the inFocus projector and laptop. Then I play them A Boy Named Sue and talk about his relationship with Johnny Cash, Waylon Jennings and Jessi Coulter, etc. I play a little bit of The Unicorn Song, another Silverstein song that was made popular by The Irish Rovers. I'd like to tell them about "One's On the Way," a hilarious song Loretta Lynn recorded, but we usually don't have time. I show them some appropriate pages from some of his more "adult" works, such as Different Dances and Uncle Shelby's Book of A-B-Z. If you haven't read those two books, I HIGHLY recommend them! They're RICH! Silverstein wrote for Playboy for awhile, and much of Different Dances, and even some of the Book of A-B-Z can be quite shocking and definitely not appropriate to teach in school, but if you can get your hands on copies, I expect you'd derive a great deal of pleasure from them. They've been some of my favorites for years! Virginia Bigler, Librarian Pease Middle School San Antonio, Texas vbigler@satx.rr.com -------------------------------------------------------------------- Please note: All LM_NET postings are protected by copyright law. You can prevent most e-mail filters from deleting LM_NET postings by adding LM_NET@LISTSERV.SYR.EDU to your e-mail address book. To change your LM_NET status, you send a message to: listserv@listserv.syr.edu In the message write EITHER: 1) SIGNOFF LM_NET 2) SET LM_NET NOMAIL 3) SET LM_NET MAIL 4) SET LM_NET DIGEST * LM_NET Help & Information: http://lmnet.wordpress.com/ * LM_NET Archive: http://www.eduref.org/lm_net/archive/ * EL-Announce with LM_NET Select: http://lm-net.info/join.html * LM_NET Supporters: http://lmnet.wordpress.com/category/links/el-announce/ --------------------------------------------------------------------