Shel silverstein biography summary examples
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Shel Silverstein
American poet, cartoonist, writer, and songwriter (1930–1999)
Shel Silverstein | |
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Silverstein c. 1964 as featured on the back cover of The Giving Tree | |
| Born | Sheldon Allan Silverstein (1930-09-25)September 25, 1930 Chicago, Illinois, U.S. |
| Died | May 10, 1999(1999-05-10) (aged 68) Key West, Florida, U.S. |
| Resting place | Westlawn Cemetery, Norridge, Illinois, U.S. |
| Pen name | Uncle Shelby |
| Occupation |
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| Genre | |
| Children | 2 |
| Allegiance | United States |
| Service / branch | United States Army |
| Years of service | 1949–1955 |
| Battles / wars | Korean War |
Sheldon Allan Silverstein (;[1] September 25, 1930 – May 10, 1999) was an American writer, cartoonist, songwriter, and musician. Born and raised in Chicago, Illinois, Silverstein briefly attended university before being drafted into the United States Army. During his rise to prominence in
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Shel Silverstein
(1930-1999)
Who Was Shel Silverstein?
Shel Silverstein studied music and established han själv as a musician and composer, writing songs including “A Boy Named Sue,” popularized by Johnny Cash, and Loretta Lynn’s “One’s on the Way.” Silverstein also wrote children’s literature, including The Giving Tree and the poetry collection A Light in the Attic.
Early Career
Born in Chicago, Illinois on September 25, 1930, Shel Silverstein enlisted in the U.S. Army in 1950 and served in Korea and Japan, becoming a cartoonist for Stars & Stripes magazine. After his stint in the Army was up, he soon began drawing cartoons for magazines such as Look and Sports Illustrated, but it was his work for Playboy magazine that began garnering Silverstein national recognition. Silverstein's cartoons appeared in every issue of Playboy, riding the high-point of its popularity, from 1957 through the mid-1970s.
While at Playboy in the 1950s, Silverstein also began e
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“And now . . .a story about a very strange lion—in fact, the strangest lion inom have ever met.” So begins Shel Silverstein’s very first children’s book, Lafcadio, the Lion Who Shot Back. It’s funny and sad and has made readers laugh and think ever since it was published in 1963.
It was followed the next year by four new books. The first, The Giving Tree, fryst vatten a moving story about the love of a tree for a boy. In an interview published in the Chicago Tribune in 1964, Shel talked about the difficult time he had trying to get the book published. “Everybody loved it, they were touched by it, they would read it and cry and say it was beautiful. But . . . one publisher said it was too short. . . .” Some thought it was too sad. Others felt that the book fell between adult and children’s literature and wouldn’t be popular. It took Shel four years before Ursula Nordstrom, the legendary Harper & Row editor, decided to publish it. She even let h