Shel Silverstein (1932-1999)

 

 "Whatever his literary shortcomings, by convincing millions of children that poetry is neither difficult nor threatening, Silverstein has earned himself an honorable place among the great names in writing for children."

His Life:

Silverstein thoroughly enjoyed observing the world around him, but was very private when it came to telling about himself to others. His publisher was under order not to dispense any of his biographical information, and he refused to give interviews in his later years. Some information emerged, though.

Born in 1932 in Chicago, Illinois, Silverstein began drawing and writing as an adolescent. After graduating from Roosevelt High School, he studied art at the University of Illinois at Navy Pier. He claimed once that he was kicked out of that school and commented that he honed his skills at the Chicago Academy of Fine Arts. He then studied English at Roosevelt University.

In the 1950s, Silverstein served in the U.S. Army in Japan and Korea, where he kicked off his career as a cartoonist with Stars and Stripes, a military publication. Upon his discharge, he delivered some of his work to Chicago's fledgling sexually-themed magazine Playboy, and publisher Hugh Hefner in 1956 gave Silverstein his big break. He would contribute stories, poems, and cartoons to that publication for many years, and the magazine would also issue collections of his work under titles such as Playboy's Teevee Jeebies.

In 1960, Silverstein published his first book, Now Here's My Plan: A Book of Futilities, This, and his next humorous work, Uncle Shelby's ABZ Book: A Primer for Tender Young Minds, was also aimed at adults. However, one of his friends convinced Silverstein that he should write for the younger crowd, and 1963 saw his inaugural children's book, titled Uncle Shelby's Story of Lafcasio, the Lion who Shot Back. This and his next effort, 1964's Uncle Shelby's Giraffe and a Half, were well-received, but Silverstein did not reach widespread fame until the release of The Giving Tree in 1964.

Multi Talented

In addition to his writing ability, Silverstein was acclaimed for his songwriting talents and reportedly taught himself to play a number of musical instruments. He won a Grammy Award in 1969 for best country song for his tune "A Boy Named Sue," which became a big hit for country-western star Johnny Cash, and also penned "One's on the Way" for country bigwig Loretta Lynn.

After 1981, Silverstein spent a good deal of time writing adult plays, the best known of which was perhaps The Lady or the Tiger, starring Richard Dreyfuss and first produced in 1981. The play is about a game show that goes to any lengths for ratings. It centers on a contestant who is forced to choose between two doors: behind one is a beautiful woman; the other contains a deadly tiger.

In 1988, Silverstein collaborated with playwright David Mamet, who also hails from Chicago, on the film, Things Change.

He continued to draw and write up until his death at about age 66 from a heart attack. This surprised his friends, who painted him as the epitome of good health. He neither drank nor smoked, and he practiced yoga and walked regularly. He was divorced and had one son, Matthew, who was 15 at the time of Silverstein's death.

The author had homes near Sausalito, California; in Greenwich Village, New York; on Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts; and in Key West, Florida and left an estate of over $18 million.

His Books:

Silverstein, like Dr. Seuss and Judy Blume, is a force to be reckoned with. He has left us with a body of solid achievement in the form of three books well on their way to becoming classics: The Giving Tree, Where the Sidewalk Ends, and A Light in the Attic.
1964The Giving Tree

The Giving Tree is a deceptively simple parable about a tree that gives all it has to the little boy it loves. The text is as spare as Silverstein's drawings, which call to mind the cerebral cartoons of Jules Feiffer. In the end the tree is a stump and the boy an embittered old man. Critical interpretations are contradictory, telling more about the reader than the book. Ministers have read it from the pulpit as an allegory of Christian self-sacrifice; feminists have denounced it as advocating the exploitation of women. Uncle Shelby's only comment is that it is a story about a tree and a boy. One suspects him laughing in his beard.

1974 Where the Sidewalk Ends

If you are a dreamer, come in,
If you are a dreamer,
A wisher, a liar,
A hope-er, a pray-er,
A magic bean buyer …

Come in … for where the sidewalk ends, Shel Silverstein’s world begins. You’ll meet a boy who turns into a TV set, and a girl who eats a whale. The Unicorn and the Bloath live there, and so does Sarah Cynthia Sylvia Stout who will not take the garbage out. It is a place where you wash your shadow and plant diamond gardens, a place where shoes fly, sisters are auctioned off, and crocodiles go to the dentist.

Shel Silverstein’s masterful collection of poems and drawings is at once outrageously funny and profound.

Notable Children's Books of 1974 (ALA)
1985 Notable Children's Recording (BL)
Outstanding Children's Books of 1974 (NYT)
1988 Choices (Association of Booksellers for Children)
Notable Titles of 1974 (NYTBR)
1981 Michigan Young Readers' Award
1984 George C. Stone Center for Children's Books (Claremont, CA) "Recognition of Merit" Award

1981 A Light in the Attic

Last night while I lay thinking here
Some Whatifs crawled inside my ear
And pranced and partied all night long
And sang their same old Whatif song:

Whatif I flunk that test?
Whatif green hair grows on my chest?
Whatif nobody likes me?
Whatif a bolt of lightning strikes me?...

Here in the attic of Shel Silverstein you will find Backward Bill, Sour Face Ann, the Meehoo with an Exactlywatt, and the Polar Bear in the Frigidaire. You will talk with Broiled Face, and find out what happens when Somebody steals your knees, you get caught by the Quick-Digesting Gink, a Mountain snores, and They Put a Brassiere on the Camel.

Notable Children's Books of 1981 (ALA)
Best Books of 1981 (SLJ)
Children's Books of 1981 (Library of Congress)
1981 Children's Books (NY Public Library)
1981 USA Children's Books of International Interest
Winner, 1983–84 William Allen White Award (Kansas)
Winner, 1983 Garden State Children's Book Award (New Jersey Library Association)
1984 Garden State Children's Book Award for Non-Fiction (New Jersey Library Association)
1984 George C. Stone Center for Children's Books (Claremont, CA) "Recognition of Merit" Award

As always, Silverstein has a direct line to what kids like, and he gives them poems celebrating the gross, the scary, the absurd, and the comical." A mouse in the hair is conjured up in "Imagining," and wordplay takes over in "The Gnome, the Gnat, and the Gnu," with it's silly line, "That Gnat ain't done gnothing to you." Other verses range the gamut from an ode to Pinocchio to a lament over a "Stone Airplane": "I made an airplane out of stone . . . / I always did like staying home."

1996 Falling Up

Millie McDeevit screamed a scream
So loud it made her eyebrows steam.
She screamed so loud
Her jawbone broke,
Her tongue caught fire,
Her nostrils smoked...

Poor Screamin' Millie is just one of the unforgettable characters in this wondrous new book of poems and drawings by the creator of Where the Sidewalk Ends and A Light in the Attic. Here you will also meet Allison Beals and her twenty-five eels; Danny O'Dare, the dancin' bear; the Human Balloon; and Headphone Harold.

So come, wander through the Nose Garden, ride the Little Hoarse, eat in the Strange Restaurant, and let the magic of Shel Silverstein open your eyes and tickle your mind.

1996 Children's Books (NY Public Library)
Editor's Chice 1996 (Booklist)
1997 Quick Picks for Reluctant Young Adult Readers (ALA)
1997 Books for the Teen Age (NY Public Library)
Children's Choices for 1997 (IRA/CBC)