Live for Today

The Missing Piece

Author: Shel Silverstein

Year: 1976

Type: fantasy

Personal Reflection:

Everyone is not perfect. Every person is one missing piece. We always hope we can be the best person in the world, but it is impossible. We are just like the missing piece. We have our own drawbacks. Although we are not perfect people, we are ourselves.

In our lives, we pursue the perfect us. We want to be the perfect round and it seems that we own the world and get everything. Nevertheless, it is wrong. In order to be perfect, we always forget and ignore things around us. Then we become unhappy and under a lot of pressure.

We always ignore our happiness when we are used to having them. We should cherish everything important around us. I don’t want to live a perfect life but a happy life. As long as I cherish, I think I will be the happiest person in the world.

Analysis:

Shel Silverstein’s drawing style tends to be simple and easy. From his works including the missing piece and the giving tree, we can see this point. He always uses the easiest thing to express something meaningful. There are a lot of blank spaces in this book as well. The main character, the round lacking of a missing piece was described well. There is only one main character in this book, but it is enough to extend this kind of plot. On the other hand, it is easy, so it is suitable for children to read and parents can explain the deep meaning toward their kids. If your children don’t like to read the words, this kind of book is good for you.

In the book, the worm, the flower, the beetle and the butterfly are represented as our close people. If we are too perfect, we may become more selfish. Therefore, we don’t care about them. It will be important to teach this thing to kids. Everyone is not perfect, but our people can make us better.