A great one to get them into is Messy Room by Shel Silverstein, from A Light in the Attic. Harper Collins. Reprinted with permission.
Messy Room
Whosever room this is should be ashamed!
His underwear is hanging on the lamp.
His raincoat is there in the overstuffed chair,
And the chair is becoming quite mucky and damp.
His workbook is wedged in the window,
His sweater's been thrown on the floor.
His scarf and one ski are beneath the TV,
And his pants have been carelessly hung on the door.
His books are all jammed in the closet,
His vest has been left in the hall.
A lizard named Ed is asleep in his bed,
And his smelly old sock has been stuck to the wall.
Whosever room this is should be ashamed!
Donald or Robert or Willie or—
Huh? You say it's mine? Oh, dear,
I knew it looked familiar!
This poem seem funny but it also provide 3 important messages:
1. When you live in world with a society with new inventions and technology every days, do you look at the environment around you not like studying the environment but you, your society or the society you live in, do you realize where you’re living and how much space you’re taking? Do we have an equal share with everything around us? Not only to do with earth but also in daily life, somehow we cannot balance every aspect of life and give them the deserved position in my mind. So next time, try to arrange the importance of each thing you encounter
2. When you criticize someone on how they do things or in this case how messy they are, look at yourself and ask if you are perfect? Is your room neat and tidy? Criticize others that are similar to you is just like you criticize a mirror image of yourself. If I were you, I would be the one to be ashamed, not the person you’re criticizing
3. Sometimes people are so messed up in their lives they can't find the surface to breathe again and to start again, turn a new leaf or just haven't thought of it and finally you realize how messed up you are. May be you can seek advice or help sometimes someone can wipe you clean. May be it’ll be your mom…or everyone else, whatever.
Shel Siverstein did not only write this poem to describe a messy room, but may be a messy life. He shows that all these things are wrong with this person room, he didn’t mean anyone. And then he realizes that it’s actually his room, his life. People do that in their life. They look at someone’s life and judge it. They criticize anything they dislike without looking at their own life. They want to correct every mistake they see, but except for their own mistakes. They’re people who want to avoid the hardest fight in their life: the fight with themselves. They don’t want to change to adapt with the current situation. Poor them!
