“Runny Babbit”, A Billy Sook By: Shel Silverstein

“Runny Babbit”,  A Billy Sook

By: Shel Silverstein

Harper Collins Publisher;

Copy Right 2005

(poetry – anthology)

Runny Babbit is a compilation by Silverstein.  He has many other very well known books in the same series such as “A light in the attic” and “where the sidewalk ends”.  This book is made up of approximately one hundred pages of quirky poems that kids adore.  Something unique to this book is the constant turning around of letter as does in the title.  For example one of my favorite in this book was called “Runny hets gandsom”;

Runny bought a wurly cig

And tuck it on with star

Runny thought, “now I look like

A handsome stovie mar

But the tair it got all hangled

In the twicket and the thigs

Runny said, “I guess some folks

Just don’t look wood in gigs”.

I also loved the one entitled “runny cooks for linderella”, where in illustration it says “Sly on the tripper- If it pits you’re a frincess”. 

In my opinion this isn’t a book for the very young children.  They need to be able to visually move letters around to understand what the author’s original word was in order to understand the poem.  For me this book reminds me of growing up reading a light in the attic, which was my text to self connection and text to text.  The line drawings, while simplistic and black and white are still managed to tell details of the story.