Flashback Friday (2)

Flashback Friday was started by Jacki over at Lovely Little Shelf and is a chance to share with others books that you loved as a kid or teenager.

Now I'm not usually one for poetry, I succumbed to a lot of "analyze this" and "what's the author REALLY saying?" type of stuff in high school and college English classes and it just kind of ruined poetry for me. With that said, one of my favorite books from my childhood was A Light in the Attic by Shel Silverstein.

I have a few memories of this book and it has popped up throughout my life. I remember the first time I was introduced to this book, it was by my aunt and we shared the same favorite poem, and that poem is still my favorite. If I'm feeling random, I've been known to recite that poem at odd times as well as one or two others.

One thing I'm not usually is a trend setter, but I do enjoy being me and sometimes that leads to others following suit. When I was in high school I started two things in different classes. In my Web Page Design class I did all my work while sitting on the floor with my keyboard in my lap and by the end of the semester, all but three people sat on the floor on a regular basis.

The other thing happened in my Honors English class my Junior year. Each week we had to do an author report where we had to write about an author and bring in something to symbolize their life or one of their works. After two weeks of hearing numerous reports on the same authors (Fitzgerald and Shakespeare mostly), I decided to do my report on Shel Silverstein. I shared with my class that he started as a cartoonist for Disney and eventually did the same for Playboy (talk about different ends of the spectrum there) and I ended my report with a poem from the book.

My item that represented Mr. Silverstein was of course, a light bulb and I am proud to say that it made it home without breaking. So now, I will end this post with the poem I have always found the most amusing, and yes, it's by memory.

Crowded Tub

There are too many kids in this tub
There are too many elbows to scrub
I just washed a behind
That I'm sure wasn't mine
There are too many kids in this tub