Background

Sheldon Allan "Shel" Silverstein was born on September 25, 1930 in Chicago, Illinois, United States, into a Jewish family.

Education

Silverstein attended Roosevelt High School and, later, the University of Illinois. He then enrolled in the Chicago Academy of Fine Arts.

Career

Throughout his career, Silverstein remained a very private person, giving few interviews and revealing little about his childhood and personal life. Silverstein served in the military during the Korean War, where he was stationed in Tokyo as a cartoonist for the military newspaper Pacific Stars and Stripes. His long and varied career as a writer and illustrator, spanning nearly half a century, includes cartoons, children's books, adult humor, song lyrics, musical compositions, one-act plays, and a screenplay. From 1956 until 1982, he was a contributing humor writer and cartoonist for Playboy magazine. Silverstein's cartoons have also been published in numerous mainstream magazines, such as Time.

His first children's book, Uncle Shelby's Story of Lafcadio, the Lion Who Shot Back, was published in 1963. Silverstein first gained widespread recognition as a children's book author with the publication of The Giving Tree, a storybook in verse. His reputation as a major children's author was furthered by several subsequent volumes, including Where the Sidewalk Ends, A Light in the Attic, and Falling Up. A number of Silverstein's poems originally published in Playboy were included in these volumes for children.

Silverstein was a contributor to the volume Free to Be … You and Me, an anthology of poetry, stories, and song lyrics for children that emphasized individual self-expression, gender equality, and diversity. He recorded several albums in which his poetry for children is recited or set to music. Among these sound recordings are The Giving Tree and Other Shel Silverstein Songs (1992), sung by Cowboy Steff, as well as Where the Sidewalk Ends (1985), and A Light in the Attic (1986), featuring poetry “recited, sung and shouted” by Silverstein.

As a song lyricist, Silverstein helped to launch the career of the band Dr. Hook and the Medicine Show. He composed many of the band's most popular songs, including “Cover of the Rolling Stone,” “Sylvia's Mother,” and “Sing Me a Rainbow.” He also composed popular songs performed by Johnny Cash, such as the well-known “A Boy Named Sue.” The Irish Rovers recorded his song “The Ballad of the Unicorn.” Other recording artists who have performed songs by Silverstein include Alan Sherman, country-and-western singer Loretta Lynn, and the folk music group Peter, Paul, and Mary.

Silverstein's output of dramatic one-act verse plays for adults includes The Lady or the Tiger Show (1981) and The Devil and Billy Markham, which was produced in 1989 as a double-bill with David Mamet's one-act play Bobby Gould in Hell, and collectively published as Oh, Hell: Two One-Act Plays (1991). Silverstein authored one screenplay, Things Change (1988), a comedic gangster film co-written with David Mamet.

Achievements

• Silverstein was well known for his writing for children, which usually consisted of absurd and funny verse and line drawings of the author’s. Silverstein's verse and illustrations in his books for children are celebrated for their whimsical sense of humor, satire, and absurdity. Silverstein is also known for his adult humor, such as his many cartoons published in Playboy magazine.
  
  Silverstein's many literary awards include the 1974 New York Times Outstanding Book Award for The Giving Tree, the 1981 School Library Journal Best Books Award for A Light in the Attic, and the 1982 International Reading Association's Children's Choice Award for The Missing Piece Meets the Big O. He was posthumously inducted into the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame in 2002. Silverstein was inducted into the Chicago Literary Hall of Fame in 2014.

Works

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  • Who Wants a Cheap Rhinoceros?

    (Looking for a new pet? Bored with cats, dogs, goldfish, g...)

    1983
  • Runny Babbit: A Billy Sook

    (From the legendary creator of Where the Sidewalk Ends, A ...)

    2005
  • The Missing Piece Meets the Big O

    (The Giving Tree and Where the Sidewalk Ends, comes The Mi...)

    1981
  • Don't Bump the Glump!: And Other Fantasies

    (Filled with stunning ink and watercolor illustrations, Do...)

    1964
  • Where the Sidewalk Ends: Poems and Drawings

    (Shel Silverstein's masterful collection of poems and draw...)

    1974
  • Lafcadio, The Lion Who Shot Back

    (Lion Who Shot Back - a whimsical tale of self-discovery a...)

    1963
  • Uncle Shelby's ABZ Book: A Primer for Adults Only

    (Full of wit and twisted humor this notorious Shel Silvers...)

    1985
  • The Giving Tree

    (As The Giving Tree turns fifty, this timeless classic is ...)

    1964
  • The Missing Piece

    (The Missing Piece, a charming fable that gently probes th...)

    1976
  • A Giraffe and a Half

    (A Giraffe and a Half comes a riotous rhyming picture book...)

    1964
  • Falling Up

    (This book comes a wondrous book of poems and drawings.)

    2006
  • Every Thing On It 2011
  • A Light in the Attic by Shel Silverstein 1981
  • Different Dances 25th Anniversary Edition 2004
  • Playboy's Silverstein Around the World 2007
  • Shel's Shorts 2003
  • My Dog Does My Homework! 2004
  • Draw A Skinny Elephant 1999

Views

Compared to Dr. Seuss, Silverstein's poetry for children has a more rebellious edge, often promoting iconoclasm and anti-establishment antics, and frequently ridiculing the rules of conduct put forth by adults. Nonetheless, Silverstein's message to children often has strong moral implications. The Giving Tree, for example, is a story of self-sacrifice and selfless devotion that has been interpreted as a Christian parable.

Personality

Silverstein began drawing and writing early in life, joking later that it gave him something to do since the girls paid him no attention.

Quotes from others about the person

• "Silverstein that rare adult who can still think like a child.” - Judy Zuckerman
  
  “Shel Silverstein is a poet-laureate of kids.” - Megan Rosenfeld

Connections

With Susan Taylor Hastings, Silverstein had one daughter, Shoshanna Jordan Hastings, born June 30, 1970. Susan died on June 29, 1975, one day before Shoshanna's fifth birthday, and Shoshanna died April 24, 1982, at age 11, of a cerebral aneurysm.

He also had a son named Matthew, born on November 10, 1984, with Sarah Spencer of Key West, Florida.

late-wife:

Susan Taylor Hastings

Wife:

Sarah Spencer

Daughter:

Shoshanna Jordan Hastings

Son:

Matthew Silverstein

References

• A Boy Named Shel: The Life and Times of Shel Silverstein In A Boy Named Shel, Lisa Rogak tells the full story of a life as antic and adventurous as any of his creations.
  2007