Books that can make boys love reading

Where the Sidewalk Ends turns forty! Celebrate with this anniversary edition that features an eye-catching commemorative red sticker. This classic poetry collection, which is both outrageously funny and profound, has been the most beloved of Shel Silverstein's poetry books for generations.

Where the sidewalk ends, Shel Silverstein's world begins. There you'll meet a boy who turns into a TV set and a girl who eats a whale. The Unicorn and the Bloath live there, and so does Sarah Cynthia Sylvia Stout who will not take the garbage out. It is a place where you wash your shadow and plant diamond gardens, a place where shoes fly, sisters are auctioned off, and crocodiles go to the dentist.

Shel Silverstein's masterful collection of poems and drawings is one of Parent & Child magazine's 100 Greatest Books for Kids. School Library Journal said, "Silverstein has an excellent sense of rhythm and rhyme and a good ear for alliteration and assonance that make these poems a pleasure to read aloud."

Shel Silverstein's incomparable career as a children's book author and illustrator began with Lafcadio, the Lion Who Shot Back. In 1964, Shel's creativity continued to flourish as four more books were published in the same year—Don't Bump the Glump!, A Giraffe and a Half, Who Wants a Cheap Rhinoceros?, and the beloved classic The Giving Tree. Later he continued to build his remarkable body of work with Where the Sidewalk Ends, A Light in the Attic, Falling Up, Every Thing On It, The Missing Piece, The Missing Piece Meets the Big O, and Runny Babbit.

Supports the Common Core State Standards.

Nicky has freckles—they cover his face, his ears, and the whole back of his neck. Sitting behind him in class, Andrew once counted eighty-six of them, and that was just a start! If Andrew had freckles like Nicky, his mother would never know if his neck was dirty.

One day after school, Andrew works up enough courage to ask Nicky where he got his freckles. When know-it-all Sharon overhears, she offers Andrew her secret freckle juice recipe—if he pays. Andrew is desperate and feels it's worth it. At home he carefully mixes the strange combination of ingredients. Then the unexpected happens...