Politics in Children's Literature: Ogden Nash, Shel Silverstein, and Dr. Seuss

Politics are expressed all throughout children's literature. This is very obvious in the authors that I will discuss. The books read for this class had many political themes in them. In reality, most children's literature is chock full of political ideas. It would be very hard to not include political ideas because they often mesh with our values. Values are taught all throughout children's literature because we want our children to learn what we feel is most important.

There are three authors that I felt were major contributors to the political ideas in children's literature, and also happen to be three of my favorite. Shel Silverstein, Dr. Seuss, and Ogden Nash are all very political authors and have some of the best messages in their books as well.

Shel Silverstein was born in Chicago, Illinois in 1932. He is divorced and has one child from that marriage. He served in the army around the 50's in Japan and Korea. Silverstein was a cartoonist for both Stars and Stripes and Playboy. Not only did he write and draw cartoons but a large portion of them were very political. Silverstein never really intended to write for children but one of his friends pushed him to start. This began his incredible career of children's literature. It is amazing what he accomplished when it was never something that he had thought about or wanted to do. He wrote The Missing Piece, The Missing Piece Meets the Big O, A Light in the Attic, Where the Sidewalk Ends, Falling Up, and The Giving Tree, all of which were for children. He also wrote many songs including "A Boy Named Sue", "One's On the Way", "The Unicorn Song", "Rosalie's Good Eats Café", and several others including many for Dr. Hook. Several of his songs he wrote with David Allen Coe. People have been trying to ban him for years.

This page is from his book Uncle Shelby's Zoo, I just think this encompasses some of the ways in which he was political. Silverstein expresses his political view points all throughout his poetry. His poem Hug O' War from Where the Sidewalk Ends is another poem that his politics shine through and this one was written specifically for children.

"I will not play at tug o' war.