"When I was a kid—12, 14, around there—I would much rather have been a good baseball player or a hit with the girls. But I couldn't play ball, I couldn't dance."

Instead, Shel Silverstein—author, poet, cartoonist, composer, lyricist, screenwriter, playwright—started writing and drawing at a young age, developing early his unique style and voice. Silverstein was born in Chicago, Illinois, in 1932. In the 1950s, he served in the military in Japan and Korea, and he was the cartoonist for the military newsletter. In 1952, he began his professional career as a magazine writer and cartoonist. Although he is perhaps most widely known for his children's books, Silverstein didn't start out writing for children. One day a friend of his brought him to talk to an editor who convinced him to write for children. He agreed, and went on to publish many books, including The Giving Tree, A Light in the Attic, and Where the Sidewalk Ends. Shel Silverstein died on May 10, 1999. In a National Public Radio interview on May 11, 1999, children's book critic Leonard Marcus said about Silverstein, "I think you could say that he was the troubadour king of American children's books . . . I think adults as well as children identify with a lot of his poems, because he was always pointing out what the little, single person, up against a much bigger world, has to contend with."