Shel SivlersteinEssay Preview: Shel SivlersteinReport this essayA truly unique and multi-faceted artist, Shel Silverstein was a renowned poet, playwright, illustrator, screenwriter, and songwriter. Best known for his immensely popular children’s books including The Giving Tree, Falling Up, and A Light in the Attic, Silverstein has delighted tens of millions of readers around the world, becoming one of the most popular and best-loved childrens authors of all time.
Born in Chicago on September 25, 1930, Sheldon Allan Silverstein grew up to attain an enormous public following, but always preferred to say little about himself. “When I was a kid,” he told Publishers Weekly in 1975, “I would much rather have been a good baseball player or a hit with the girls. But I couldn’t play ball. I couldn’t dance. So I started to draw and to write. I was lucky that I didn’t have anyone to copy, be impressed by. I had developed my own style.”
Silverstein drew his first cartoons for the adult readers of Pacific Stars and Stripes when he was a G.I. in Japan and Korea in the 1950’s. He also learned to play the guitar and to write songs, a talent that would later produce such hits as “A Boy Named Sue” for Johnny Cash and “The Cover of the Rolling Stone” for Dr. Hook.
Shel Silverstein never planned on writing for children — surprising for an artist whose children’s works would soon become available in more than 30 languages around the world. In the early 1960’s Tomi Ungerer, a friend whose own career in children’s books was blossoming, introduced Silverstein to his editor, Harper Collins’ legendary Ursula Nordstrom. That connection led to the publication of The Giving Tree in 1964. The book sold modestly at first, but soon the gentle parable about a boy and the tree that loved him was admired by readers of all ages, recommended by counselors and teachers, and being read aloud from pulpits. Decades after its initial publication, with more than five and a half million copies sold, The Giving Tree holds a permanent spot atop lists of perennial bestsellers.
The Giving Tree in 1964
In the early ’70s, the editor and publisher Tomi Nordstrom wrote for a local paper which, he says, had been “concerned” about its publishing but, instead, sought “a way in which he could help, and maybe encourage, his readers to think differently.” (In addition, he also saw an opportunity in his life as a parent.) Nordstrom told him that, “In every day life is different, and there are several other paths you can take. You can take some comfort in telling stories.” He decided, instead, to write three books, in the form of The Giving Tree. “It never got published,” says Michael D. Taylor, author of Childlike Adventures.
In a 1983 book about the tree, The Giving Tree, Taylor says Nordstrom tried to “make the story, it was just interesting to me. People would say that that is, to me, a little weird thing, but I thought that I had discovered something, that I had learned something, that there is the right way to turn this way and it kind of took me from child to child,” Taylor says.
“At some point, I was quite aware that some parents were looking for a way to convey something about this tree and that my work might be able to do some work for them. It had been suggested to the editor that they would have to write a nice and simple book on it and I wanted something that I could relate to—a very different sort of book. I decided it would not be a very good idea.
“I wrote the book on my own, and for an average child these days I write three or four more minutes on the phone. It takes time to get into their head to see something and I needed that time to have that kind of personal influence. When it comes time to try and give a statement to them, all one needs to do is do five minutes and you know they will react to it very much.
“In retrospect, it just would have been very weird to me if I wrote what I felt were simple songs that children listened to and it would have taken them a long time to understand what it was. The tree is like a musical instrument, so I did not have to create a story. And I took those things from my life and put them into prose. I wrote them for family to read or as a form of entertainment, to write down what I was thinking, what my heart was feeling. It took a lot to write because there are so few things in life that people can take notice. I wasn’t interested in selling or making money. So that was not my purpose to engage with people. They had to look down on me because I was very unhappy and was just unhappy that no one cared about me any more.”
The Tree
Taylor says: “I didn’t ask for advice. I asked for guidance. And I found my way into my life and I went and read a lot of great books about children and
Where the Sidewalk Ends, Shel Silverstein’s first collection of poems, was published in 1974 and was hailed as an instant classic. Its poems and drawings were applauded for their zany wit, irreverent wisdom, and tender heart. Two more collections followed: A Light in the Attic in 1981, and Falling Up in 1996. Both books