Shel Silverstein; Writer of Classic Children’s Books, Ribald Cartoonist

Shel Silverstein, creative and eclectic writer, composer, humorist and cartoonist who penned poetry and prose for children, plays for adults and such songs as Johnny Cash’s hit “A Boy Named Sue,” was found dead Monday in his Key West, Fla., home. He was 66.

Silverstein was discovered in his bedroom by two cleaning women, said Virginia Anagnos, spokeswoman for the writer’s publisher, Harper Collins in New York.

Police in Key West told Associated Press that the cause of death was not yet determined but that no evidence of weapons or drugs was found.

Silverstein was best known and loved for two collections of children’s poetry that appealed to all ages, “Where the Sidewalk Ends: The Poems & Drawings of Shel Silverstein” in 1974 and “A Light in the Attic” in 1981.

His most recent work, “Falling Up: Poems and Drawings,” in 1996 marked his return to children’s literature after many years of writing for adults. Kirkus Reviews called the collection of 150 poems an irresistible read and an “inspired assemblage of cautionary tales, verbal high jinks and thoughtful observations.”

“He had a sophisticated and innocent wise-guy charm,” cartoonist Jules Feiffer told The Times. “He drew like a dream and had a wonderfully evocative free line. His animals, for instance, were more real, more authentic than the animals themselves.

“Two or three generations from now,” Feiffer said, “kids will still be reciting his poems the way an earlier generation did with Edward Lear. He was a true artist.”

Silverstein also was remembered for his ribald cartoons for Playboy, plays such as “The Lady or the Tiger Show,” and novelty and country songs like “The Unicorn,” “Payday,” “A Boy Named Sue” and Loretta Lynn’s “One’s on the Way.”

Unusually reclusive for a creator of literature and music for commercial consumption, Silverstein granted few interviews. But in 1975, he did discuss with Publishers Weekly how he fell sideways into fame:

“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. . . . So, I started to draw and to write. I was . . . 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 was a Thurber, a Benchley, a Price and a Steinberg. I never saw their work until I was around 30.”

Shelby Silverstein served in the military in Japan and Korea in the 1950s and honed his talents as a cartoonist for the Pacific edition of Stars and Stripes. Afterward, he returned to his native Chicago and went to work for Playboy in 1956.

The resulting drawings were published in the successful collections “Playboy’s Teevee Jeebies” in 1963 and “More Playboy’s Teevee Jeebies: Do-It-Yourself Dialogue for the Late Late Show” in 1965.

Silverstein’s first book was “Now Here’s My Plan: A Book of Futilities” in 1960 with a foreword by humorist Jean Shepherd.

“I never planned to write or draw for kids,” he told Publishers Weekly, aiming his humor at older audiences. But, he said, he was “practically dragged . . . kicking and screaming” by a friend, Tomi Ungerer, to editor Ursula Nordstrom, who persuaded him he could do it.

The result was the 1963 children’s book “Uncle Shelby’s Story of Lafcadio, the Lion Who Shot Back.”

But widespread fame came the next year when Silverstein published his classic “The Giving Tree.” The story of an altruistic tree that sacrificed its shade, fruit, branches and ultimately its trunk to make a little boy happy was seen by many as a religious symbol of selflessness. Although feminists criticized the story of the giving female tree and taking boy as sexist, the story has remained a much-loved fable.

Former Times entertainment editor Charles Champlin, when handed a copy of the book a decade after its publication, wrote:

“There are only a few hundred words of text scattered through the guileless line drawings, but the effect is very moving indeed because, like all fables, Silverstein’s carries messages of grown-up truth. The messages, also not new, are that each man kills the thing he loves, but that giving--even the ultimate giving--is the only enduring satisfaction.

“His charming book seems to me to prove again,” concluded Champlin, who previously had known of Silverstein only through his Playboy cartoons, “that in art, less is more, and that what is true can always be simply said.”

In addition to the equally award-winning “A Light in the Attic,” Silverstein also delighted children with “The Missing Piece” in 1976, about a circle in search of its missing wedge, and “The Missing Piece Meets the Big O” in 1981, told from the wedge’s point of view. Both seem to espouse self-sufficiency but have been happily interpreted and endlessly discussed in their various applications to life.

After 1981, Silverstein concentrated for years on adults, writing plays and collaborating with David Mamet on Mamet’s 1988 film “Things Change” and other projects.

In addition to “The Lady or the Tiger Show” about an all-or-nothing game show, his plays include “Gorilla,” “Wild Life,” “Remember Crazy Zelda?”, “The Crate,” “The Happy Hour,” “One Tennis Shoe,” “Little Feet” and “Wash and Dry.”

Silverstein’s one-act play “The Devil and Billy Markham” was first produced at New York’s Lincoln Center in 1989 along with Mamet’s “Bobby Gould in Hell” under the collective title “Oh, Hell.”

The peripatetic Silverstein even appeared in one film, “Who Is Harry Kellerman and Why Is He Saying Those Terrible Things about Me?” starring Dustin Hoffman as a folk singer in 1971. Silverstein composed the soundtrack for it and those of other films. His musicianship included performing, such as the 1980 country music album “The Great Conch Train Robbery.”

In 1984, he won a Grammy for the album of “Where the Sidewalk Ends.”

Silverstein, who had a houseboat in Sausalito near San Francisco and an apartment in Greenwich Village as well as the home in Key West, once told the writers’ biography series Something About the Author:

“I am free to leave . . . go wherever I please, do whatever I want. I believe everyone should live like that. Don’t be dependent on anyone else--man, woman, child or dog. I want to go everywhere, look at and listen to everything. You can go crazy with some of the wonderful stuff there is in life.”

The writer is survived by a 15-year-old son, Mathew, from a marriage that ended in divorce.