The Light in the Attic Is Still On

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 the fire

For we have some flax-golden tales to spin.

Come in! Come in!

--Shel Silverstein

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Madeleine St. Marie, a seventh-grader at Portola Junior High School in Tarzana, has read three of Shel Silverstein’s books, and rereads his final poetry collection, “Falling Up,” when she needs a laugh.

“He can write about anything and you just start giggling,” said Madeleine, who added: “It’s a shame he died, because he was so creative.”

She is not alone in praising and mourning the children’s author and illustrator who died last month at age 66.

Silverstein’s books--often zany looks at life through audacious rhymes and stories--are often the first to be snatched up during classroom reading times. At libraries, his children’s books are among the most worn from use and most in need of being replaced. Some children even remember the page numbers of their favorite Silverstein poems.

Library branches “will have a wide variety of books of poetry, but consistently, year after year, we always need Shel Silverstein,” said Susan Patron, senior librarian at the Los Angeles Public Library.

Since Silverstein’s books began to be published 30 years ago, many of his 10 children’s titles have become classroom staples and library classics. They include “Where the Sidewalk Ends,” “A Light in the Attic” and “The Giving Tree.”

“It’s interesting that books have a life of their own, and there are books that for whatever reason get carried from generation to generation to generation. And Shel Silverstein’s books have entered that category,” said Christina Garcia, supervisor of the children’s division at the Beverly Hills Library.

Silverstein’s children’s books have been translated into 20 languages, and almost 20 million copies have been printed. “A Light in the Attic” spent 182 weeks on the New York Times bestseller list after it was published in 1981.

HarperCollins, Silverstein’s publisher since 1963, has seen a doubling in sales of his children’s books since his death--plus a tremendous outpouring of emotion from readers.

“People were calling up and crying and sharing some of their stories of growing up on his books,” said Virginia Anagos, director of publicity for HarperCollins. “They felt that they knew him and that he was part of their lives.”

Silverstein also produced works for adults as a playwright, a cartoonist for Playboy and a music composer. But his writing for youngsters has a special appeal rooted in a humorous, close-up look at life’s mundane details, like having to bathe, attending school and the messiness of spaghetti.

Often accompanied by his own whimsical line drawings, the stories evolve into exaggerated, fantastic tales. For example, in the poem “Hungry Mungry,” a hungry boy starts to eat everything in his house.

Four chocolate shakes, eight angel cakes,

Nine custard pies with Muenster cheese,

Ten pots of tea, and after he,

Had eaten all that he was able,

He poured some broth on the tablecloth

And ate the kitchen table.

His parents said, ‘Oh Hungry Mungry, stop these silly jokes.’

Mungry opened up his mouth, and ‘Gulp,’ he ate his folks.

While many such tales are silly and even naughty, Silverstein’s works also provide valuable life lessons, as in “The Giving Tree,” the story of an unselfish tree who never refuses to help a little boy.

“The Giving Tree” is “a beautiful book. It’s about nonmaterialism,” said parent Heather Frenner, who was at the Beverly Hills Library with her 2-year-old daughter. “He seems to write from a profoundly spiritual point of view.”

That book triggered negative reactions from some critics, who saw it as antifeminist and as perpetuating the myth of the mother who exists only to be used.

But such criticism was rare in Silverstein’s career.

“He was one of the first people to write a poem that was nontraditional, both in the subject and the way the poem is written and the words he used,” said Caron Chapman, executive director of the Assn. of Booksellers for Children, based in Minneapolis. “He changed the definition of poetry to be more playful and universal.”

Amy Dreliant, a fourth-grader at Hawthorne School in Beverly Hills, said she likes the poems’ language: “It’s funny and it’s strange. He says things that normally wouldn’t happen.”

Silverstein’s work also stays with some children because of how it connects with their lives.

Dashiell Alison, a fourth-grader at Arroyo Vista Elementary School in South Pasadena, relates to the poem “Sick,” which recounts how a little girl fakes illness to skip school.

Silverstein wrote:

I cannot go to school today,

Said little Peggy Ann McKay.

I have the measles and the mumps,

A gash, a rash and purple bumps

. . . What’s that? What’s that you say?

You say today is . . . Saturday?

G’bye, I’m going out to play!

“Sometimes when I’m not looking forward to school I feel like [the girl in the poem],” said Dashiell.

Some teachers find that Silverstein’s poetry is a valuable tool for students learning English as a second language and for special education classes. In addition, his work is “great bait for nonreaders,” said Patron of the L.A. Public Library.

And above all, there is his humor. “It kind of reminds me of a stand-up comic,” said Julie Jennings, principal and former teacher at Arroyo Vista.

“Some of the funniest stand-up comic bits are about the everyday things, and a good stand-up comic can take those daily things and twist them and make them very funny, and he can do that.”

* SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA LIVING: A new book provides a rich profile of Mark Twain, describing what inspired him to write the tales of Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn. A biography of Alexander Graham Bell explores his many noteworthy inventions. E4