Shel Silverstein

Sheldon Allan Silverstein, better known as Shel Silverstein, was an American writer, cartoonist, songwriter, and musician. He was born in Chicago, Illinois, on September 25, 1930, and grew up in the Albany Park neighborhood. His father, Nathan, was a Jewish immigrant from Russia, and his mother, Helen, was born in Chicago to a Hungarian-Jewish family. They ran a bakery that fared poorly after opening during the Great Depression. Silverstein spent summers in Kenosha, Wisconsin, a place he later referred to in published works including A Light in the Attic and Uncle Shelby’s ABZ Book.

Silverstein attended Theodore Roosevelt High School in Chicago, then spent one semester at the University of Illinois and one semester at the Chicago Academy of Fine Arts before being drafted into the United States Army. He served in Japan and Korea. Drawing had started early for him: at age seven he traced the work of Al Capp. Later, he said he had wanted to be good at baseball or popular with girls, but since that did not happen, he drew and wrote instead. He also said he was lucky not to have anyone to copy, which helped him develop his own style before he knew much about figures such as Thurber, Benchley, Price, and Steinberg.

His first published work appeared in the Roosevelt Torch, a student newspaper at Roosevelt University, where he studied English after leaving the Art Institute. In the Army, his cartoons appeared in Pacific Stars and Stripes, where he had first been assigned to layouts and paste-up. His first book, Take Ten, a collection of his military cartoon series, was published by Pacific Stars and Stripes in 1955. After he returned to Chicago, he submitted cartoons to magazines while selling hot dogs at Chicago ballparks. His work appeared in Look, Sports Illustrated, and This Week, and in 1956 Take Ten was reprinted by Ballantine Books as Grab Your Socks!

In 1957, Silverstein became one of the leading cartoonists in Playboy, which sent him to many places to create illustrated travel reports. During the 1950s and 1960s, he produced 23 installments of “Shel Silverstein Visits...,” using a sketchbook format with typewriter-styled captions. His locations included a Pennsylvania naturist community, the Chicago White Sox training camp, San Francisco’s Haight-Ashbury, Fire Island, Mexico, London, Paris, Spain, and Africa. His cartoons appeared in Playboy from 1957 through the mid-1970s, and one feature grew into Uncle Shelby’s ABZ Book, published by Simon & Schuster in 1961 as his first book of new, original material for adults.

For many readers, Silverstein is best known as a children’s author. His acclaimed books include The Giving Tree, Where the Sidewalk Ends, and A Light in the Attic. His works have been translated into more than 47 languages and have sold more than 20 million copies. He was also a songwriter with a large catalog. He wrote Johnny Cash’s 1969 track “A Boy Named Sue,” which reached number 2 on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100, and his songs were recorded and popularized by artists including Tompall Glaser, The Irish Rovers, Dr. Hook & the Medicine Show, Marianne Faithfull, and Loretta Lynn. Silverstein received two Grammy Awards and was nominated for both a Golden Globe Award and an Academy Award. A Light in the Attic is dedicated to his daughter, who died at age 11. Silverstein died at home in Key West, Florida, of a heart attack on May 10, 1999, at age 68.