Pinocchio

Shel Silverstein

Silverstein, Shel. 1996. Falling up. New York: HarperCollins. ISBN: 0-06-024802-5.

Introduction

This poem is a fun retelling of Pinocchio.

Pinocchio

Pinocchio, Pinnochio,

That little wooden bloke-io,

His nose, it grew an inch or two

With every lie he spoke-io

Pinocchio, Pinocchio,

Thought life was just a joke-io

'Til the mornin' that he met that cat

And the fox in a long red cloak-io.

They cried, "Come on, Pinocchio,

We'll entertain the folk-io,

On puppet strings you'll dance and sing

From Timbuktu to Tokyo."

Pinocchio, Pinocchio,

Got sold to a trav'lin' show-kio,

Got put in a cage by a man in a rage

With a stick to give him a poke-io.

So Pinocchio, Pinocchio,

Out of that cage he broke-io

To the land where boys just play with toys

And cuss and fight and smoke-io.

Pinocchio, Pinnochio,

He finally awoke-io

With donkey ears and little-boy tears,

And his poor wooden heart was broke-io.

So back home ran Pinocchio

As fast as he could go-kio

But his daddy, he had gone to sea,

So off to sea went Pinocchio.

Pinocchio, Pinocchio,

He got quite a soak-io

When he lost his sail and got ate by a whale,

And it looked like he was gonna croak-io.

But Pinocchio, Pinocchio,

A fire he did stoke-io

Inside that whale, who sneezed up a gale

And blew him out in the smoke-io.

Pinocchio, Pinocchio,

Next mornin' he awoke-io

And he had no strings or puppety things,

And his donkey ears had disappeared,

And his nose�surprise�was the normal size,

And his body felt fine, not made of pine,

And he cried, "Oh joy, I'm a real boy,

And everything's okey-dokey-o."

Extension

This poem would work well in collaboration with various versions of Pinocchio. For example:

Collodi, Carlo. 1995. Pinocchio. Illustrated by Ed Young. New York: Philomel Books. ISBN: 0399229418.

Ingoglia, Gina. 1992. Walt Disney's Pinocchio. Illustrated by Gil DiCiccio. New York: Disney Press. ISBN: 1562821369.

Kids could also create their own poems based on classic stories like Pinocchio, Snow White, Beauty and the Beast, The Three Little Pigs, etc.

Module Four

Module four focuses on poetry across the curriculum.

• First They Came For The Jews (poem that can be matched with a book of nonfiction)
• Pinocchio (poem that can be matched with a picturebook)
• Relatives (poem relevant to the social studies)
• 100 Is A Lot (poem relevant to mathematics)
• Crystal Vision(poem relevant to science)