12. Every Thing On It

Written & illustrated by Shel Silverstein

HarperCollins, 2011

$19.99, ages 1 and up, 208 pages

Everything on it. That's how you order a serving of Shel Silverstein.

You pile on all the poems and drawings of his that you can get.

In the title poem of this fantastic collection, a boy piles on crazy things on his hotdog -- a snake, a hat, you name it.

But unlike his hotdog with everything on it, with Silverstein, there's nothing you'd want to leave out.

And luckily we don't have to!

In this volume, fans get to devour 145 poems by the late great Silverstein that were edited out of earlier books.

Edited out, not because he thought them lesser, but because they didn't fit the organization of a particular book.

Shel, Is That Really You?

It's like hearing from a friend you never thought you'd see again.

The late great Shel Silverstein, the genius behind Where the Sidewalk Ends, returns in a posthumous collection of never-before-published poems just released from HarperCollins.

Every Thing On It, out yesterday ($19.99, 208 pages), contains 145 illustrated poems that are signature Shel: off-the-cuff silly, wonderfully matter-of-fact, and in a few sparkling entries, self-effacing and poignant.

Silverstein's genuineness comes through in ever line, reminding us why we've adored his work. He was a dreamer and a kid at heart. He wasn't afraid to let it all out, even the wackiest of thoughts, and say things as they were (Woulda-Coulda-Shoulda and God's Wheel).

He made us feel great about trying (Listen to the Mustn'ts) and he got what kids were about. He gave them a voice when they felt unheard (The Little Boy and The Old Man) and even acted the rapscallion, playing off perceived injustices (Remote-a-Dad).

There wasn't anything, it would seem, he stayed away from, and as this poem in his new collection shows, he wasn't even averse to laughing at the craft he held dear: 

A lizzard in a blizzard

Got a snowflake in the gizzard

And nothing else much happened, I'm afraid,

But lizard rhymed with blizzard

And blizzard rhymed with gizzard

And that, my dear, is why most poems are made.