SOURCE: Review of Falling Up, by Shel Silverstein. Publishers Weekly 243, no. 18 (29 April 1996): 73.

In the following review, the reviewer recommends Silverstein's poetry volume Falling Up as an appealing book for children and comments on the clever, darkly subversive, anti-establishment humor of Silverstein's poetry.

All the things that children loved about A Light in the Attic and Where the Sidewalk Ends can be found in abundance in this eclectic volume [Falling Up,] Silverstein's first book of poetry in 20 years. By turns cheeky and clever and often darkly subversive, the poems are vintage Silverstein, presented in a black-and-white format that duplicates his earlier books. Like Roald Dahl, Silverstein's cartoons and poems are humorously seditious, often giving voice to a child's desire to be empowered or to retaliate for perceived injustice: one child character wields a “Remote-a-Dad” that will instantly control his father, and another dreams of his teachers becoming his students...