Dear Shel Silerstein,

Who doesn’t love a Billy Sook? I know I do. I just want to thank you so much for all your poems and sharing them with the world. When I was in 3rd grade we started to learn about poetry in my Language Arts class. It was all so boring and I didn’t understand it. Until one day my teacher, Mrs. Leza announced that we were going to have a 3rd grade poetry café. Everyone had to memorize a poem and recite it in front of all the parents. I didn’t want to do it, because we hadn’t read any fun poems. Poetry was all so boring. I asked Mrs. Leza if I could do something funny like Dr. Seuss but she said that was two easy, it was for “little kids”. I went home and told my mom about the poetry café and how my teacher wouldn’t let me do Dr. Seuss, and how those were the only fun poems. My mom said she knew just the guy, you! She took me to the bookstore and bought me “Runny Babbit”. I went home and started to read through it. I loved it; it was so funny. Runny Babbit and all his friends Flutterby, Toe Jurtle, Rirty Dat and all the others. It was honestly a very Billy Sook. It was hard to pick out my favorite poem to recite at the poetry café but in the end I had to say my favorite was “Runny And Dankee”. I read that book constantly so memorizing “Runny And Dankee” was no problem. When the 3rd grade poetry café came up I was actually excited! I knew I had the coolest, most fun poem in the entire school. You made poetry and reading fun. After that all I wanted to do was write and read poetry just like yours. Your poems relate to kids in a fun ridiculous way. Thank you so much for showing me that poetry can be fun.

Sincerely,
Adriana