Shel Silverstein’s Runny Babbit Returns is Here!

Where the Sidewalk Ends (1974)
This collection of poetry is my favorite because it was my first Shel Silverstein book—I still have the original copy my parents gave me when I was eight, tattered and stained with a dust jacket my mom laminated with clear contact paper. Everything about this book intrigued me—who was this bald guy Shel who stared intensely in his author’s photo, clutching a guitar and showing his bare foot to the camera? Who is this “for Ursula” in the dedication, her name drawn in a balloon held by a disembodied hand? Will that bird on the opposite page with a dart-like beak pop it? Whoever Shel was, he was funny, writing poems about a kid who turned into a TV, a guy who was so prone to losing things that he actually lost his head, a guy who tries to sell his sister, and one written from the perspective of a person in the process of being eaten by a boa constrictor.

A Light in The Attic (1981)
Where the Sidewalk Ends is the gateway book to A Light in the Attic—no kid hooked by one can resist the other. This book includes classics of poetic silliness such as “Prayer of the Selfish Child,” “Hot Dog,” about a boy whose parents will only let him get a hot dog for a pet, and “Little Abigail and the Beautiful Pony,” in which a girl actually dies of a broken heart because her parents won’t give her a pony.

The Giving Tree (1964)
Silverstein wrote a great many popular books, but this might be the most beloved of all. This story of a tree who loved a little boy so much she gave him everything she could—leaves to play in, branches to climb, apples to eat, and more—has endeared kids and adults alike for decades. Its initial printing was only about 5000 copies, but the book went on to sell more than 8.5 million copies.

The Missing Piece (1976)
This story of a circular being with a wedge-shaped chunk missing who looks a lot like Pac-Man, but predated Pac-Man by four years, is one of Silverstein’s most popular works of prose. The roundish guy gets stuck every time he rolls around to the part that he’s missing, so he goes on a quest to complete himself. But once he’s found the missing piece, he realizes he liked it better without the missing piece, when he could pause his rolling to admire a butterfly or study a worm.

Runny Babbit (2005)
When Silverstein died in 1999, the prolific artist and writer left behind a trove of unpublished work, including this charming collection of poems about a cuddly rabbit who speaks in tongue-twisting spoonerisms (transposing the first letters or sounds of two or more words to create often silly new phrases).

Runny Babbit Returns (2017)
The poems in Runny Babbit were winnowed from a large quantity of tongue-tied-rabbit themed poems Shel Silverstein wrote and illustrated, and lucky for readers, there’s enough material for a new volume that hit bookstores September 19. An editor who’d worked with Silverstein when he was alive collaborated closely with his family members to select the 41 poems for this volume. According to Publishers Weekly, they even laid out all the possible Runny Babbit poems and illustrations on the floor, covering the hallway of the publisher’s office, to help them make the final decision—a process Silverstein probably would have enjoyed.