Nose-spurting fun

I must have the mind of a child, because I giggle like an eight-year-old girl at a slumber party when I read Shel Silverstein's poetry.

Silverstein is once again playful and hilarious in Falling Up, a collection of more than 100 short poems illustrated by the author with very simple black line drawings. Even though the illustrations aren't anything particularly special, the writing is.

This is not soporific reading and you'll find no lullabies in Silverstein's "burpity," "Sweat-Sock Breath" and truncated "complainin'" and "ain't."

What you will find in this clever collection are short verses packed with colorful characters, frolic and mayhem, including:

* Christmas dog, who chases a bearded, bag-carrying intruder from the house.
* A man who has covers his body with tattoos instead of buying a suit.
* Stork, who takes away the older folk and makes them like brand new.
* A human balloon all gassed up with colas.
* A little boy who stuck his tongue out so far it was burned by a star.
* Medusa, who can't quite figure out how to tame her unruly hair.

Sometimes the poems are a bit gruesome, like the boy who is a little slow to catch onto how carrots are supposed to help his vision as he sticks the orange veggies out of his eye sockets. Or the little darling who dutifully is looking to the left and the right before crossing a street just as a safe is plummeting to fall on her little head from the rooftop above.

Sometimes it's just a rebellious rage, like the rant of the nap taker or the boy who wants to order his dad around with a remote control.

Shel Silverstein's Falling Up, although amusing in its absurdity, isn't for those easily offended. The humor is older kids' humor. It teeters on the gross and even includes a little potty humor now and then--like the gardener who uses a somewhat unconventional God-given hose to water.

GARDENER by Shel Silverstein
We gave you a chance
To water the plants.
We didn't mean that way--
Now zip up your pants.

You also will find the word but* in Falling Up at least once. I wish Silverstein had done without it, but there you go. If you don't like bathroom humor and don't like your kids reading it, don't buy Falling Up.

This book is recommended for 9- to 12-year-olds, and I think they know enough about right and wrong by that age to enjoy a good giggle at lampooning authority and social norms without getting led down the wrong path.

Older kids, moms and dads, nose gardeners, gloomy old Mister Moody, tongue sticker-outers and weird birds of all ages will giggle, chuckle, snort and spurt milk out their noses as they read Silverstein's wonderfully ridiculous word pictures and plays in "Falling Up."

Earlier works by Shel Silverstein: "Where the Sidewalk Ends" and "A Light in the Attic."