I Full Name: Sheldon Allen Silverstein.
II Some people said he was born on September 25,1932 some think but actually born 1930.
III Born in Illinois, Chicago.
Shel developed his own style of writing at a very young age. This way he didn't know anybody that he could copy off of also not knowing any body helped him write he had no examples of different styles and that way he had his own style.
Wrote many books, songs, and poems.
The first thing that Shel did was he wrote in a adult magazine in 1952 as a cartoonist .
Served in the Japan Korea war in the 50's and while serving he wrote cartoons for the military newspaper, Pacific Stars and Stripes.
Had only one kid a girl married and divorced.
In 1980 he wrote a new folk song .
His friend, Tomi Ungerer, brought him to Ursula Nordstom's office where she convinced him to do children's books.
Wrote many country songs for a lot of different singers.
Wrote a lot of poem books for kids and some books.
I Best selling and most popular book "The Giving Tree".
Falling Up (1996), Where the Sidewalk Ends (1981), A Light in the Attic (1981), The Missing Piece (1982), The Missing Piece Meets the Big O.
"I was so lucky that I didn't have anyone to copy, be impressed by. I had developed my own style; I was creating before I knew there were a Thurber, a Benchley, a Price and a Steinberg. I never saw their work until I was around thirty" Shel said.
He won awards for all three books: The Michigan Young Readers Award for Where the Sidewalk Ends (1981); a School Library Journal Best Books (1982) for A Light in the Attic, an International Reading Association's Children's Choices Award for The Missing Piece Meets the Big O.
The Giving Tree was rejected by editor William Cole.
In 1981 before he died he started writing plays for adults one of them was called The Lady or the Tiger Show.
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