Biography
Shel Silverstein was born in Chicago Illinois in 1932. He was divorced and has one daughter.
When he was young 12-14 or so, he said he would have rather been a baseball player or a hit
with the girls but he couldn’t play ball and he couldn’t dance so, he started to draw and to write.
Shel Silverstein served in the military in the 1950’s. He was stationed in Japan and Korea, while
in the military he was a cartoonist for the Pacific edition of the military newspaper Stars and
Stripes. In 1956 he became a cartoonist for Playboy. In 1963 Shel Silverstein started to write
children books but only achieved fame as a children writer after the publication of The Giving
Tree. In the late 1960’s he became also known for being a composer and lyricist. In 1974 Shel
Silverstein published a collection of poems for children called Where the Sidewalk Ends. In this
poem the mood is dazed and lost in thought. It also makes some people think about loneliness.
Also in the poem there is an example of an alliteration which is, Yes we’ll walk measured and
slow. The main purpose of the poem is if at first you don’t succeed try and try again. In 1976 he
published a picture book called The Missing Piece and in 1981 wrote the sequel The Missing
Piece Meets The Big O. Since 1981 he started to concentrate on writing plays for adults.
Shel Silverstein died on the 10th of May in 1999.