Enter the world of Shel Silverstein…

To celebrate the 25th anniversary of Shel Silverstein's most popular book, Where the Sidewalk Ends is now available in a special edition containing the classic hardcover book and a CD of highlights from his Grammy Award-winning album. This is a wonderful gift and keepsake for Shel Silverstein fans, old and new.

From the outrageously funny to the quietly affecting — and touching on everything in between — here are poems and drawings that illuminate the remarkable world of the well-known folksinger, humorist and creator of The Giving Tree.

Notable Children's Books of 1974 (ALA)
1985 Notable Children's Recording (BL)
Outstanding Children's Books of 1974 (NYT)
1988 Choices (Association of Booksellers for Children)
Notable Titles of 1974 (NYTBR)
1981 Michigan Young Readers' Award
1984 George C. Stone Center for Children's Books (Claremont, CA) "Recognition of Merit" Award

About the Author

"And now, children, your Uncle Shelby is going to tell you a story about a very strange lion — in fact, the strangest lion I have ever met." So begins one of Shel Silverstein's very first children's books, 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 two other books. The first, The Giving Tree, is 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 editor at Harper Children's books, decided to publish it. She even let him keep the sad ending, Shel remembered, "because life, you know, has pretty sad endings. You don't have to laugh it up even if most of my stuff is humorous." Ultimately both adults and children embraced The Giving Tree.

Shel returned to humor that same year with A Giraffe and a Half.

If you had a giraffe . . .
and he stretched another half . . .
you would have a giraffe and a half . . .

is how it starts and the laughter builds to the most riotous ending possible.

Shel's first collection of poems and drawings, Where the Sidewalk Ends, appeared in 1974. It opens with this invitation:

If you are a dreamer, come in.
If you are a dreamer, a wisher, a liar,
A hope-er, a pray-er, a magic bean buyer . . .
If you're a pretender, come sit by my fire,
For we have some flax golden tales to spin.
Come in!
Come in!

Shel invited children to dream and dare to try the impossible, from making a hippopotamus sandwich to drawing the longest nose in the world, to writing about eighteen flavors of ice cream and Sarah Cynthia Sylvia Stout who wouldn't take the garbage out.

With his second collection of poems and drawings, A Light in the Attic, in 1981, Shel asked his readers to turn the light on in their attics, to put something silly in the world, and not to be discouraged by the Whatifs.

WHATIF
Last night, while I lay thinking here,
Some whatifs crawled inside my ear
And pranced and partied all night long
And sang their same old Whatif song: &