One blog post, “ Why I Hate The Giving Tree by Shel Silverstein,” argues that the book encourages selfishness, narcissism, and codependency. “The Giving Tree” ranks high on both “favorite” and “least favorite” lists of children’s books, and is the subject of many online invectives. She is likewise “happy” to give him her branches, and later her trunk, until there is nothing left of her but an old stump, which the old man, or boy, proceeds to sit on.Ī little Googling corroborated my own distaste. Not having any to offer him, the tree is “happy” to give him her apples to sell. One day, the boy, now a young man, returns, asking for money. But then time passes, and the boy forgets about her. “And the tree was happy,” goes the refrain. And we should give what we can because it makes us happy to do so.The beginning of the story is innocuous enough: a boy climbs a tree, swings from her branches, and devours her apples (I’d never noticed that the tree was a “she”). What I take from The Giving Tree, and what I try to subtly convey to my kids when I read it, is that giving is good and important. I won’t give away the ending but it’s poignant and tender and the more I think about it, really sad for a children’s story.

Although the tree willingly gives to the boy, he never seems to be fulfilled and she grows increasingly sadder. The tree loves the little boy and gives everything she can. The story is about a little boy who loves a tree and as he grows he asks for more and more things from the tree. But I haven’t yet and this makes writing a review a little more difficult than usual.

I realize that in this Internet age with sites like Wikipedia and Amazon and any number of blogs and review sites, I *should* be able to figure it out. So I’ve now read it some 60-70 times, but here’s the strange thing: I’m still not quite sure what the moral of the story is.

I based my decision to buy it on two things-I had a notion that it was an important book in the canon of children’s literature and I really liked the cover: a simple line drawing of a boy and a tree on a bright green background.įast forward a few months and it has become one of the three or four books that *must* be read before bedtime. I’d seen it before but never read it and thought it might be nice to read to my children. Not so long ago, I bought The Giving Tree on a visit to a great NY bookstore.