My sister Gloria ran a child care business in Perth, Australia, for over ten years. When my children were small she came back to San Francisco occasionally to visit. One time, instead of bringing them stuffed platypus and sheep skin slippers, she bought them a book of poetry.
“Poetry?” I asked, skeptical about her gift. No one in my house had ever read poetry.
“Yes, the kids in my center love it.”
It was Shel Silverstein’s The Missing Piece. I don’t remember my children’s reaction to the book, but I was completely drawn into the page-turning story and the simplicity of the illustrations. After taking the whole book in one gulp I paused to take a breath.
“Amazing.” I told my sister. “I can read this.”
And a seed was planted in me.
Shel Silverstein? Amazing! He had the most varied career – started out as a Hugh Hefner crony, drawing cartoons for Playboy, then he wrote tunes which became gold records for other people, then he became one of the major children’s authors on the planet, and finally he became an influence for you. That is more than hip.