This book is a challenged book
Personal Reaction: I love Shel Silverstein and I love this delightful book of super-silly poems. This book has been challenged on the grounds that it promotes disrespect, horror, and violence. Sure, there are poems about a broiled face and a girl who died because she didn't get her way but they are presented with humor and wit, not violence and horror. This actually became one of the most challenged books of the 90's which made me wonder. How could a book of nonsensical, light-hearted, and downright goofy poems be one of the top challenged books. Looking further I found that some considered the illustratins to be too suggestive. (I counted only one bare bottom in the whole book :) The black and white drawings, done by Silverstein, are whimsical and playful in my opinion. And I had to love the last objection I found about the book. It claimed the book "glorified Satan, suicide and cannibalism, and also encouraged children to be disobedient." I find nothing offensive about this book and can see myself reading these poems to my sixth graders during those few minutes after recess.
Silverstein, S. (1981). A light in the attic. New York: HarperCollinsPublishers.
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