A Giraffe and a Half

In time for its 40th anniversary, Shel Silverstein's A Giraffe and a Half now appears with a five-foot, unfolding cardboard giraffe tape measure affixed to the inside back cover. Beginning simply with a giraffe who ""stretched another half,"" the poem snowballs into tumultuous disarray as the creature ends up ""with a chair in his hair/ and a snake eating cake"" and more. The pages quickly crowd with Silverstein's uproarious ink renderings of the bedlam.