Uncle Shelby's ABZ Book: A Primer for Adults Only Book

This is an amazing book, Uncle Shelby's Abz Book: A Primer for Tender Young Minds (1961) and an amazing event in publishing. I bought this book for my sons at a local bookstore around 1979. It was squeezed in with all the other picture books on the shelf in the children's section. I thought it looked interested because it had a matte brown cover, the color of cardboard, with simple line-drawings that attracted my interest. Something different, I thought. But I didn't realize exactly 'how' different at that time.

When I got home I announced to my two boys that I had a surprise, a new book, and we'd read it after dinner and bath time. But when I started reading it aloud to them, I realized the joke was on me. It was hilariously perverse on an adult level. Nothing I'd choose to read to my kids. I saw I was being put on the spot, laughing at the letter "C" where Uncle Shelby was explaining: "C is for the stranger who gives you candy. Isn't he nice?"; while the boys begged me to tell them what was so funny. At the time, at ages 5 and 2, I had to improvise to get out of the predicament without inciting tantrums that could have extended the upcoming bedtime ritual for hours. I got through it rather smoothly by making up my own stories that seemed to go with the pictures. Unable to stifle my own laughing at Silverstein's words while the boys laughed at the stories I was making up we created a surreal illusion of shared family time. Since those days, I have asked my older son, now an adult, if he remembers the book. He exclaims "Yes! That was the best book ever Mom! What happened to it?" Then he informs me that he found out my little game when a babysitter found the book and read it to them. My son knew he had stumbled into a restricted genre and kept the knowledge of it to himself all these years.

Here on Goodreads I ran across some reviews of the book. I realized that many didn't know of the first book that had been written. Twenty-four years after the original had been published with the sub-title: For Tender Young Minds, a second revised edition appeared. Difference in appearance, it showed up on the scene with a glossy colorful cover that was more in line with Dr. Seuss books than anything characteristic of Silverstein. (This is the version I see on the Goodreads reviews.) Along with the design changes, a not-to-be-missed glaring circle contains a new sub-title that warns would-be-buyers: "A Primer For Adults Only". The first edition I had read to my sons I found at online bookstores for rare/used books. Don't get too excited though if you were thinking of getting a copy: it comes with a price tag of $300.00! Damn! I'm now going to the boys anxiously pleading: "You don't have any idea at all where that book went to? Are you sure we didn't give it to your cousins?"

The good news is, despite the exorbitant price, this first book is still around and still available. Silvertein's Uncle Shelby is still around to plunder some innocent minds into the realm of adult humor; to subvert the control that authorities want to have over the elderly and children. I'm sure it is with delight that Silverstein wanders, ghosting about, keeping tabs on it, chuckling to himself at how successful the trick has proven itself to be.

The intentions of the book are actually quite noble. Uncle Shelby states quite clearly in it that it's book about freedom and inclusivity, that children and elderly people should have the same rights and respect as everyone else, and "not be treated like children and old people." The book is a social-political act, an event, an Alan Kaprow Happening, right in line with 1960's demonstrations, student rebellions, race riots, and performance art taking place at that time. It's an act of defiance, challenging censorhip laws and culturally enforced rules of appropriateness. With cleverly written humor and cartoons, Silverstein shows a respect for the marginalized elderly and children, pointing to the fact that their acceptance as human beings like everyone else is being denied. At it's core, this book is a protest of those injustices.

I can't say that I agree that everything in the book is good for a child to hear, but I do support the effort Silverstein made to challenge the rules. That's the only way we grow. Writing and Art more than anything shouldn't be stifled, even if the results are disturbing. This is how we grow and develop as individuals and as a country.

I asked my oldest son---he said that at some point a babysitter had read to him Silverstein's text. It did him no harm at all, and I'd like to think that it contributed to his sense of humor, artistic skill as a cartoonist and painter, and especially to his passion for justice. Jean-Paul Sartre talks about being allowed to roam freely in his grandfather's library. He remembers reading books that he could the pronounce the words but didn't know what they meant. Books intended for "adults only". He says it made him into the great adult thinker he became. I believe this is the essence of Silverstein's motivation for writing Uncle Shelby's ABz book.

We should all pool our funds and buy the original to donate to our public libraries if they don't have one. We should do whatever we can to make sure that this highly volatile piece of writing doesn't end up forever lost.

That said: anyone got a hat we can pass?