Shel Silverstein began writing when he was twelve years old. He would have preferred to be playing ball with children his age, but he had no athletic ability. Also, girls showed no interest in him, so he began to write. He was not familiar with the style of any famous poets. Since he had no one whom he could mimic, he began devloping his own technique. In the 1950's, Silverstein enlisted in the armed forces …showed first 75 words of 389 total…

…showed last 75 words of 389 total…George G. Stone Award, 1984, and the William Allen White Award, 1984. The 1981 publication, "The Missing Piece Meets the Big O," a sequel to "The Missing Piece," won the International Reading Association's Children's Choice Award in 1982. His most recent book, "Falling Up: Poems and Drawings," appeared in bookstores in 1996, and has been praised by critics everywhere. Silverstein currently writes and draws for "Playboy," which published his poem "Hamlet as Told on the Street," in the January 1998 issue.