
Tried the grass beneath bare feet, Felt neat. You’ll never make everyone happy, but as long as you enjoy what you’re writing and aren’t being discriminatory or harmful, you’ll be just fine.“I tried on the summer sun, Felt good. No matter what you write, someone will always find a problem with it. Parents think that the poem sends a negative message to children, telling them that their life might as well be over if they don’t get something they want. In the poem Abigail is spoiled and she dies after her parents refuse to buy her a pony. “Little Abigail and the Beautiful Pony” was another poem from A Light in The Attic that was challenged because of Abigail’s death at the end. Since the book was being read in schools, the parents weren’t aware of what their children were learning until the kids came home and told them about it.

Those who weren’t religious wanted to shield their children from the topic of Satan and “Monsters I’ve Met” did the opposite of that.

The piece “Monsters I’ve Met” caused outbursts among parents as well. Many children are already reluctant to wash the dishes, so it’s understandable how them reading a poem like this in school could be concerning for their parents. Parents felt it encouraged them to slack off and come up with excuses to get out of doing their chores. Others thought the poem, “How Not to Have to Dry the Dishes,” sent a bad message to young children. They thought the image of the child blindfolded and tied to a chair with ropes and chains would prevent their children from sleeping at night.

Parents and teachers worried that one poem in the book called “Kidnapped” was too scary and intense for their children to be reading about, especially in school. It was first banned in a Florida school in 1993 because adults thought it promoted, and even encouraged, disobedience, violence, suicide, Satan and cannibalism. Shel Silverstein, the world’s most famous children’s poetry author, had his book, A Light in the Attic banned and challenged several times.
