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Speaker 1: This Day in History Class is a production of iHeartRadio.

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Speaker 2: Hello and Welcome to This Day in History Class, a

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Speaker 2: show that flips through the pages of history to deliver

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Speaker 2: old news in a new way. I'm Gabe Lucier, and

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Speaker 2: in this episode, we're talking about the life and death

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Speaker 2: of one of the most celebrated and most controversial children's

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Speaker 2: authors of the twentieth century. The day was May tenth,

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Speaker 2: nineteen ninety nine. Beloved children's author Shelle Silverstein died of

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Speaker 2: a heart attack at his home in Key West, Florida.

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Speaker 2: He was sixty seven years old and was survived by

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Speaker 2: his son, Matthew. Most people remember Shelle Silverstein for his

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Speaker 2: tongue twisting poetry, whimsical, bittersweet stories, and for the charming

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Speaker 2: line drawings that accompanied them, all of which he drew himself.

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Speaker 2: Many of Shell's children's books, including The Giving Tree, A

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Speaker 2: Light in the Attic, and Falling Up, have become staples

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Speaker 2: of millions of personal libraries, those of both kids and adults, Because,

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Speaker 2: as anyone who's read his work knows, Shell Silverstein was

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Speaker 2: not your typical children's author. His poetry was a unique

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Speaker 2: mix of joyful absurdism, gross out humor, macabre twists and

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Speaker 2: sincere reflections. The result were musical verses that, while simple inform,

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Speaker 2: were deeply satisfying to hear, read, and to think about.

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Speaker 2: Since he is best known for his children's work, longtime

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Speaker 2: readers may be surprised to learn that Shell actually had

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Speaker 2: a long and varied career outside the genre. He was

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Speaker 2: a long time cartoonist for Playboy magazine, the author of

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Speaker 2: nine stage plays for adults, and even a semi successful

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Speaker 2: folk say during the nineteen sixties. But there are some

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Speaker 2: unifying threads between all his various works. Those include his dark,

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Speaker 2: gleeful sense of humor, his knack for ridiculing figures of authority,

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Speaker 2: and his promotion of personal empowerment. Sheldon Alan Silverstein was

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Speaker 2: born into a Jewish middle class family in Chicago, Illinois,

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Speaker 2: on September twenty fifth, nineteen thirty. Details of his early

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Speaker 2: life are largely unknown, beyond that as an adult, Silverstein

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Speaker 2: valued his privacy and never spoke at length about his

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Speaker 2: personal life or his childhood. One thing we do know

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Speaker 2: for sure about the young Shell Silverstein is that he

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Speaker 2: never intended to be a writer. His original aspiration was

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Speaker 2: to be a baseball player, a ladies man or preferably both.

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Speaker 2: In a rare nineteen seventy five interview with Publishers Weekly,

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Speaker 2: Silverstein recounted the death of that dream and how it

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Speaker 2: set him on the path to becoming an author and illustrator.

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Speaker 2: When I was a kid, he said, twelve to fourteen

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Speaker 2: around there, I would much rather have been a good

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Speaker 2: baseball player or a hit with the girls. But I

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Speaker 2: couldn't play ball, I couldn't dance. Luckily the girls didn't

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Speaker 2: want me. Not much I could do about that, so

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Speaker 2: I started to draw and to write. By the time

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Speaker 2: I got to where I was attracting girls, I was

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Speaker 2: already into work, and it was more important to me.

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Speaker 2: Silverstein may not have had the skills to be a

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Speaker 2: pro athlete, but he did spend five years working at

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Speaker 2: the Cubs in White Sox stadiums in Chicago. True, he

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Speaker 2: was a concessions vendor, paying his way through college, but

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Speaker 2: the job still gave him some valuable life lessons just

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Speaker 2: the same. For example, when a reporter later asked the

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Speaker 2: author what he had learned about people from his time

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Speaker 2: as a hot dog vendor, Silverstein replied, quote, I learned

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Speaker 2: they like mustard and they like a hot bun. Did

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Speaker 2: you know that if you steamed the bun first, they'll

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Speaker 2: really like it? Shell sold a lot of hot dogs

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Speaker 2: during his college years, but he never did did get

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Speaker 2: his degree. First, he attended the University of Illinois, but

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Speaker 2: was quickly kicked out due to his bad grades. Next,

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Speaker 2: he tried the Art Institute of Chicago, but wound up

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Speaker 2: dropping out after about a year. Lastly, he enrolled at

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Speaker 2: Chicago's Roosevelt University, where he studied English for a full

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Speaker 2: three years. His time at the school proved formative, as

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Speaker 2: it was there that Shell first started writing and cartooning

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Speaker 2: for the student paper. His flare for flaunting authority and

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Speaker 2: social norms was there even in his earliest work. For instance,

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Speaker 2: the first cartoon he ever published showed a naked student

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Speaker 2: smoking a cigarette in front of an angry professor. The

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Speaker 2: caption read, what do you mean no smoking? I thought

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Speaker 2: this was a liberal school. Before he had a chance

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Speaker 2: to finish his studies at Roosevelt, Shell was drafted into

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Speaker 2: the US Army in nineteen fifty three and sent to

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Speaker 2: fight in the Korean War. The grim experience likely colored

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Speaker 2: his often dark view of the world, but unexpectedly, it

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Speaker 2: also gave him the chance to earn his first art

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Speaker 2: related paycheck. During his tour of duty, Shell worked as

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Speaker 2: a cartoonist for the Pacific edition of the US military's

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Speaker 2: newspaper Stars and Stripes. But don't think he toned down

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Speaker 2: his style for Uncle Sam. On the contrary, one of

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Speaker 2: his cartoons almost got him court martialed. Apparently it implied

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Speaker 2: that officers were addressing their families in stolen uniforms, and

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Speaker 2: the higher ups didn't find it very funny. In the end,

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Speaker 2: Shell narrowly avoided the court martial by agreeing that his

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Speaker 2: future strips would only lampoon civilians and animals, not his

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Speaker 2: fellow soldiers. After being discharged from the Armed Forces in

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Speaker 2: nineteen fifty five, Silverstein's publishing career really began to take shape.

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Speaker 2: He returned to Chicago and started working as a freelance cartoonist.

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Speaker 2: It went smoothly for a while, with him landing gigs

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Speaker 2: at magazines such as Sports, Illustrated, This Week, and Look.

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Speaker 2: The only downside was Shell didn't get much exposure from

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Speaker 2: those jobs, and none of them were steady work. However,

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Speaker 2: in nineteen fifty seven, Shell caught his big break when

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Speaker 2: he scored the job of resident cartoonist for Playboy, the

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Speaker 2: new adults only magazine had premiered just two years earlier,

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Speaker 2: allowing him to get in on the ground floor of

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Speaker 2: the operation. It wasn't just some short lived stint, either.

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Speaker 2: Shell Silverstein's cartoons appeared in every issue of Playboy from

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Speaker 2: nineteen fifty seven all the way through the mid nineteen seventies. However,

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Speaker 2: that wasn't the only work of his that Playboy published.

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Speaker 2: In nineteen sixty one, the adult magazine published an excerpt

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Speaker 2: from a mock children's book that he'd been working on,

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Speaker 2: called Uncle Shelby's ab z Book, A Primer for Tender

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Speaker 2: Young Minds. Soon after the abridged version appeared in Playboy,

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Speaker 2: Shell actually published it separately as his very first book.

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Speaker 2: As you probably guessed, it wasn't really a kid's book.

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Speaker 2: It was men as a satirical spin on children's alphabet books,

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Speaker 2: the kind where each page gives you a letter, an illustration,

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Speaker 2: and a handy mnemonic to help kids learn each letter

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Speaker 2: and how it's used. Of course, teaching the alphabet wasn't

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Speaker 2: quite the goal in Uncle Shelby's case. Instead, his book

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Speaker 2: used associations that targeted the insecurities and gullibility of children,

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Speaker 2: playfully spurring them on into all kinds of mischief. For example,

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Speaker 2: the entry for e encouraged kids to hurl eggs at

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Speaker 2: the ceiling in order to feed the magic genie Ernie

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Speaker 2: who lived there. Another much darker entry advised kids to

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Speaker 2: pretend to drink Lye the next time they were craving

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Speaker 2: a piece of candy, because after the doctor pumps their stomach,

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Speaker 2: they'd be given quote, a nice red lollipop. Black humor aside,

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Speaker 2: the book was all in good fun and clearly was

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Speaker 2: never meant for kids in the slightest. However, it seems

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Speaker 2: that at least a few parents bought their kids a

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Speaker 2: copy by mistake, because from nineteen eighty five onward, the

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Speaker 2: print edition of Uncle Shelby's ABZ Book has included a

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Speaker 2: stamp right on the front cover that says a primer

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Speaker 2: for adults only. What's interesting is how well the tongue

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Speaker 2: in cheek book reflected the author's view of children's literature.

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Speaker 2: It's no secret that he disliked the way other authors

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Speaker 2: condescended to their young audience. Shell sometimes spoke out about

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Speaker 2: society's tendency to tone down the scarier elements of classic

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Speaker 2: fairy tales in order to make the stories fluffier and

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Speaker 2: more kid friendly. His distaste for that kind of overbearing

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Speaker 2: self censorship clearly informed his ABZ book, but ultimately he

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Speaker 2: realized that the best way to push against the stifling

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Speaker 2: status quo of children's books was to write one himself.

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Speaker 2: According to Shell, it was a friend and fellow illustrator

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Speaker 2: named Tomi Ungerer who convinced him to give it a try,

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Speaker 2: and by convinced, I really mean forced, because the author

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Speaker 2: later said that unger quote practically dragged me kicking and

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Speaker 2: screaming into editor Ursula Nordstrom's office, and Nordstrom convinced me

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Speaker 2: that Tony was right. I could do children's books. With

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Speaker 2: that validation, Shell Silverstein made the bold move to stick

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Speaker 2: with the Uncle Shelby persona he had created for his

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Speaker 2: playboy work. He called his new book Uncle Shelby's Story

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Speaker 2: of Lufcadio The Lion Who Shot Back. It was an

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Speaker 2: appropriately twisted tale about a marshmallow loving lion who becomes

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Speaker 2: a famous marksman and has a bit of an identity

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Speaker 2: crisis in the process. You know, standard kids stuff. Laugh

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Speaker 2: CaTiO is one of Shell Silverstein's lesser known works, but

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Speaker 2: he quickly followed it up with perhaps his most famous,

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Speaker 2: The Giving Tree. He wrote it in nineteen sixty, one,

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Speaker 2: year after his first book, and then moved right along

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Speaker 2: to a third title called A Giraffe and a Half.

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Speaker 2: But while Shell's story of a generous apple Tree would

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Speaker 2: eventually become one of his defining works, at the time

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Speaker 2: it was written, no publisher would touch it. If you're

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Speaker 2: familiar with the story, you likely know why that's the case.

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Speaker 2: The Giving Tree is not a very happy story. In fact,

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Speaker 2: it's downright sad in some places, and if it has

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Speaker 2: a moral lesson to impart, it's a pretty ambiguous one.

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Speaker 2: That sense of uncertainty was in keeping with the author's

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Speaker 2: mission to be a new, more honest kind of children's author,

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Speaker 2: one who didn't talk down to child readers or sugarcoat

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Speaker 2: the world for them. Instead, Shell wanted to bridge the

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Speaker 2: gap between adult and children's writing, But from the publisher's perspective,

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Speaker 2: the Giving Tree was stuck somewhere in the middle of

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Speaker 2: that bridge. For example, one editor of Simon and Schuster

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Speaker 2: rejected the book, saying, quote, it's not a kid's book.

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Speaker 2: Too sad, and it isn't for adults either, too simple.

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Speaker 2: Another editor was even more direct in his response, which

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Speaker 2: simply said that tree is sick rot. It took some time,

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Speaker 2: but HarperCollins eventually came around publishing The Giving Tree in

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Speaker 2: nineteen sixty four. The author definitely got the last laugh

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Speaker 2: on that one. Fast forward to today, and the book

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Speaker 2: has become one of the all time children's classics. Not

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Speaker 2: only is it sold over ten million copies, it's also

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Speaker 2: been translated into no less than thirty different languages, which

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Speaker 2: isn't too shabby for a story about a sick, neurotic

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Speaker 2: apple tree not wanting to be Pigeonholed. By the success

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Speaker 2: of The Giving Tree, Shel Silverstein continued as a traveling

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Speaker 2: reporter and cartoonist for Playboy magazine. In addition to writing

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Speaker 2: and drawing many more successful children's books, he also tried

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Speaker 2: out new mediums as well, including that of folk music.

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Speaker 2: Between nineteen fifty nine in the mid nineteen seventies, Shell

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Speaker 2: actually enjoyed a pretty successful music career, though not so

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Speaker 2: much as a singer. His voice was deemed too raspy

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Speaker 2: and jarring for most people's taste, though he still released

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Speaker 2: about a dozen albums of his own. His true talent, however,

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Speaker 2: was songwriting. He went on to write more than eight

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Speaker 2: hundred songs by the end of his life, many of

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Speaker 2: which were recorded and performed by some of the top

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Speaker 2: artists of his day, everyone from Waylon Jennings and Willie

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Speaker 2: Nelson to Jerry Lee Lewis and Johnny Cash. In fact,

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Speaker 2: shel Silverstein even won a Grammy for a song he

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Speaker 2: wrote for Cash. Nineteen sixty Nine's a Boy Named Sue

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Speaker 2: If you've never heard it, The song tells the story

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Speaker 2: of a boy who was saddled with the name Sue

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Speaker 2: by his absentee father. After being picked on all his

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Speaker 2: life or having a quote unquote girl's name. He swears

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Speaker 2: revenge and eventually tracks down his wayward dad. At that point,

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Speaker 2: the boy's father reveals that he only named his son

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Speaker 2: Sue because he wanted to make him tough, knowing that

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Speaker 2: he'd be forced to stand up for himself whenever people

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Speaker 2: made fun of him. For whatever reason. Sue accepts the explanation,

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Speaker 2: and father and son are reconciled. Take a listen, Well.

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Speaker 3: My daddy left Tom when I was three, and he

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Speaker 3: didn't leave much. Tomaw and me just this old guitar

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Speaker 3: and a empty bottle of food. I don't blame him,

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Speaker 3: because he running hit. But the meanest thing that he

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Speaker 3: ever did was before he left.

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Speaker 1: He was and named me Sue.

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Speaker 3: Well, he must have thought that it was quite a joke,

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Speaker 3: and it got a lot of laughs from lots of vote.

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Speaker 3: It seems I had to fight my whole life through.

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Speaker 3: Some gal would giggle and I'd get rid, and some

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Speaker 3: god laughed night and bust his head. I'll tell you

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Speaker 3: life ain't easy for a boy named Sue.

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Speaker 2: You might not expect such dark subject matter to come

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Speaker 2: from the mind of a celebrated children's author, but that

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Speaker 2: kind of black humor is par for the course in

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Speaker 2: shel Silverstein's poetry. One of my favorite examples is the

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Speaker 2: poem Dreadful from Where the Sidewalk Ends. Shelle gave a

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Speaker 2: much better reading than I could, so here he is

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Speaker 2: for the poem's final verse.

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Speaker 1: Someone hate the baby, What a frightful thing to eat?

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Speaker 1: Someone hate the baby? The one she wasn't very sweet.

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Speaker 1: It was a hardless thing to do. The policeman heaven

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Speaker 1: got a clue. They simply can't imagine who would go

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Speaker 1: and eat the baby?

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Speaker 2: Many of Shell's poems reflect a mischievous, even ghoulish sense

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Speaker 2: of humor. Some parents find it inappropriate, but kids can't

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Speaker 2: seem to get enough of it. In fact, I think

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Speaker 2: that's a big part of the appeal for young readers,

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Speaker 2: the hints of menace and sadness that underlines so much

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Speaker 2: of Shell's writing. Sure, the silliness and cleverness of his

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Speaker 2: rhymes also has a lot to do with it, as

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Speaker 2: does the musicality of his poems. They're just plain fun

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Speaker 2: both to read and to hear. But Silverstein's edge or

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Speaker 2: dark side, is the the thing that really separates his

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Speaker 2: verses from those of someone like Doctor Seuss, to whom

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Speaker 2: he was often compared. Another quick poem that goes a

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Speaker 2: long way toward explaining the Shell Silverstein difference is the

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Speaker 2: Land of Happy. It goes like this, Have you been

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Speaker 2: to the land of happy? Where everyone's happy all day,

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Speaker 2: where they joke and they sing of the happiest things,

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Speaker 2: and everything's jolly and gay. There's no one unhappy and happy.

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Speaker 2: There's laughter and smiles galore. I have been to the

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Speaker 2: land of Happy? What a bore. The reason that kind

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Speaker 2: of material is appealing to children is because on some level,

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Speaker 2: they recognize and appreciate the honesty of it. They know

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Speaker 2: that life isn't always safe and happy, because even at

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Speaker 2: an early age, kids sometimes don't feel that way themselves.

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Speaker 2: But unlike other authors, Shell Silverstein didn't pull any punches.

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Speaker 2: In fact, he once went on record with The New

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Speaker 2: New York Times about just how much he disliked happy

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Speaker 2: endings and magical solutions in children's stories. He felt those

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Speaker 2: easy answers were a cop out and that they created

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Speaker 2: a sense of alienation in the reader. He went on

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Speaker 2: to explain further, saying, quote, the child asks why I

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Speaker 2: don't have this happiness thing you're telling me about and

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Speaker 2: comes to think that when his joy stops, that he

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Speaker 2: has failed, that it won't come back. Shel Silverstein sought

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Speaker 2: to avoid that outcome in his own work. He wanted

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Speaker 2: to train kids not only to recognize that some stories

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Speaker 2: have sad endings, but to accept that and to still

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Speaker 2: enjoy the story regardless. It all goes back to that

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Speaker 2: revolutionary idea of his to be honest with children. A

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Speaker 2: parent's gut reaction is to try and spare their kids

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Speaker 2: the pain of sad unhappy endings whenever possible. But in

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Speaker 2: practice that just leaves them with an incomplete worldview, which

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Speaker 2: is far worse in the long run than a few

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Speaker 2: tears at story time. That said, it's important to note

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Speaker 2: that shell Silverstein was hardly a doom and gloom author.

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Speaker 2: In addition to his more light hearted verses, he also

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Speaker 2: penned some of the most inspirational children's poems to ever

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Speaker 2: grace a nursery. There are almost too many to choose from,

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Speaker 2: but to close out the show today, I want to

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Speaker 2: leave you with one of my personal favorites. It's called

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Speaker 2: Listen to the Muscins, and like many of the best

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Speaker 2: Shell Silverstein poems, it offers a pertinent lesson for readers

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Speaker 2: of any age. Listen to the Muscins. Child, Listen to

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Speaker 2: the don'ts, Listen to the shouldn'ts, the impossibles, the won't,

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Speaker 2: listen to the never haves. Then listen close to me.

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Speaker 2: Anything can happen, Child, Anything can be. I'm Gabe Lucier

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Speaker 2: and hopefully you now know a little more about history

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Speaker 2: today than you did yesterday. You can learn even more

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Speaker 2: about history by following us on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram

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Speaker 2: at TDI HC Show, and if you have any comments

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Speaker 2: or suggestions. Feel free to pass them along by writing

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Speaker 2: to This Day at iHeartMedia dot com. Thanks to Chandler

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Speaker 2: Mays and Ben Hackett for producing the show, and thank

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Speaker 2: you for listening. I'll see you back here again tomorrow

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Speaker 2: for another day in history class