befus's Full Review: Silverstein - Giraffe and a Half
Children love repetition. When they're very little, this usually takes the form of endless "do it again!" kinds of games. No adult can outlast a child's endless delight in repeated rounds of peek-a-boo or let's-build-a-tower and knock it down again.
When kids get a little older, their love of repetition often translates into a love of repetitive songs and rhymes. Some of the most fun are the ones that build on the repetition, adding elements so that a list gets longer and longer. I still remember my early enjoyment in "As I Was Going to St. Ives," and "The House that Jack Built." My very favorite, however, was probably "There Was An Old Woman That Swallowed a Fly." It was weird and slightly gross (even a bit macabre at the end) but it never failed to make me laugh, and I loved trying to say all the different things the old woman swallowed as fast as I could, especially as the list got longer and more improbable.
I'm guessing Shel Silverstein must have grown up with favorite repetitive rhymes. Only someone tapped into that childhood pleasure could have written and illustrated the zany A Giraffe and a Half, a book my six year old is currently asking for on a regular basis.
Silverstein is probably best known for his poetry collection Where the Sidewalk Ends and his classic picture book The Giving Tree. Though I remember both of those from my childhood, I never came across A Giraffe and a Half. If I had, I think I would have been as enamored of its silliness as my daughter is now!
A Giraffe and a Half starts with the common sense premise that "If you had a giraffe...and he stretched another half...you would have a giraffe and a half." If you're having trouble picturing a giraffe and a half, don't worry. Silverstein gives us a picture of a giraffe with an average length neck, and a little boy who tugs at the giraffe until the neck stretches out, making the creature much taller. He's the giraffe and a half featured throughout the rest of the book.
But with the neck-stretching, the fun has barely started. The flexible giraffe proceeds to wear and do all sorts of things. First the giraffe puts on a hat (inside lives a rat); then the little boy dresses him in a suit (which makes him look cute); then the boy glues a rose (to his nose). Sometimes the giraffe takes the initiative and sometimes the boy. Silverstein uses the second person so any child listening to the book will find him or herself standing in the boy's place and having all these adventures (for example: "If you glued a rose to the tip of his nose...")
The rhymes and actions come thick and fast, and it just gets zanier, each verse building on the last. Some of the additions make some sort of sense (the bee who stings the giraffe's knee might well have been attracted to the rose on the nose!) but some of them are just downright silly. The giraffe wears a shoe and then steps in some glue. He uses a chair to comb his hair. You get the idea. This wonderful zaniness goes on for pages and pages, with the new element making the list longer and longer as you go.
Because of course you repeat every element every time! "If he tripped on a snake who was eating some cake...you would have a giraffe and a half with a rat in his hat looking cute in a suit with a rose on his nose...." etc., etc. I warn you, it gets LONG, tongue-twisty, and oh so much fun! You might not want to try this right before bedtime, especially if you're the reading parent and feeling a bit tired at the end of a long day. Not that a giggly child will mind in the least as you trip and stumble over the long rhyming list!
Silverstein's pictures are a big part of the enjoyment. As usual, they're very simple black and white drawings. There's not a drop of color anywhere, which gives it a coloring book feel. The pictures are drawn in firm, clear lines and are nicely detailed. I especially love the expressions on the faces of the boy and the giraffe, and the way the long, lean giraffe gracefully twists and contorts as he finds himself tripping through a variety of zany activities. At one point, the giraffe is on a bicycle (while wearing a suit, playing a flute, carrying a skunk in a trunk, with a chair in his hair, and the rat in the hat holding on for dear life, and a shoe dripping glue, and a cake-eating snake twined round his neck...and oh yes, did I mention the boy clinging to the giraffe's tale while pulling along a wagon that's stuffed with a dragon?). It's just plain fun.
What I like most about the book is that it goes full circle. Silverstein doesn't just leave us with the list growing ever longer and longer. That would be a bit like pedaling furiously uphill on a bike, only to find yourself perched at the top leaning precariously on the edge. Instead, he lets us coast back down, gloriously fast, hands-off the handlebars toward the end as we slow. One by one, the giraffe sheds all the things he's become encumbered with as the story progressed. The bee flies away, he puts the shoe with the glue on you, and so on. My daughter's favorite part comes when we get to "and the whale left his tail and went off for the mail" which features a very funny picture of a friendly whale, standing on his flippers, looking expectantly at a rather astonished postman.
The full circle ending is marvelously satisfying. You really do have a feeling of coasting to a simple and perfect stop when you (and the boy in the story) find yourself simply standing there again, with a plain old giraffe.
I recommend A Giraffe and a Half if your 4-8 year old's giggle tank is low. You might even discover that your beginning-intermediate reader gives these pages an independent reading try (I was happy when that happened at our house!). Just hold on tight and get ready for a fun ride!
~befus, 2008
A Giraffe and a Half written and illustrated by Shel Silverstein HarperCollins, 1964 0060256559 (hardback; still in print!)
blockquote I If you had a giraffe BR and he stretched another half & #133; BR you would have a giraffe and a half. And if you glued a rose BR to the t...More at HotBookSale
Delightfully zany rhymes about a giraffe who accumulates some ridiculous things--like glue on his shoe and a bee on his knee--only to lose them again,...More at Buy.com Marketplaces
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