Shel Silverstein Forever Postage Stamps

The stamp does not show Shel Silverstein. It shows the boy reaching up for an apple from the cover of The Giving Tree, the 1964 book that outsold everything else he wrote. Derry Noyes designed it and the Postal Service issued it in April 2022. Silverstein, who lived from 1930 to 1999, wrote poetry, drew cartoons for Playboy, and wrote A Boy Named Sue for Johnny Cash - the range is unusual enough that picking one image was never going to be simple.

Choosing the book art rather than a portrait made it a stamp people use rather than admire. It goes on mail to and from children, on school and library correspondence, on the notes teachers send home, and on anything going to someone who had that book read to them. Sheets of 20, Forever value - one ounce of first-class mail whenever it gets used.