The Giving Tree
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Tools and Hardware Reviews of The Giving Tree
Customer Review: A classic
Summary: 5 Stars
I love this book. It basically teaches how important friendship and nature really are. It's a classic in my book.Customer Review: A definite part of your library for appreciating things and people
Summary: 5 Stars
This is an awesome book to read to students during Thanskgiving and Christmas time to remind them to be thankful for what they have and to not always expect things in return. Its a great book to read year round to simply remind people that to be appreciative and to apprciate the people who always give and never receive.
I gave this book as a gift to someone who always gives until she has very little left for herself, and she still finds room to give her reserve.
Customer Review: A really demented message
Summary: 1 Stars
Ugh! This books sends a really demented message about unlimited sacrifice by parents for their children. I actually think that the message is harmful to parents, who seem to think that the more they sacrifice, the better. Can't you do right by your kids and still be a human being?Customer Review: Best book for Children
Summary: 5 Stars
This is one of the best books for children. Its teaches them how to give without expecting anything in return. It also teaches them about friendship and how friends are forever and stand by each other in time of need. The tree was always happy to see the boy and gave the apples, leaves, brances and even its trunk in order to see the boy happy. In this day and age, how many of us would give up something only to see our loved ones happy? Well, we can count such people on our fingertips. This book teaches our children to love without any boundaries and I truly appreciate it.Customer Review: Can a Book "Just be a Book"?
Summary: 4 Stars
I read The Giving Tree when I saw it in an answer on Quora.com ("What book would have the biggest positive effect on the world, if everyone read it?")
I can see the controversy when I read it from the adult perspective (whether it's a parenting or relationship angle): the tree gives and gives, the boy takes and takes...
Then again, Little Red Riding Hood is controversial. Cinderella is controversial. I'm talking about the original versions of the story, which are often violent and graphic, In the original version, one of Cinderella's stepsisters cut off her toe and the other step sister the back of her heel in order to force fit their feet into the glass slipper. Not really something I'd expect to be "appropriate" for young children. But when I read it as a little girl, I wasn't thinking about it or projecting myself into it or wondering how the woman could stand the pain of a bloody foot in a glass slipper (and wouldn't all that blood be suspicious to the prince?).
It makes me wonder, Can a book "just be a book" and not affect children the way we are affected from our adult's point of view?
For parents who read The Giving Tree to small children, perhaps they don't think that young children's level of consciousness or awareness could read into the kinds of messages we adults can see, or grasp. They may read this as a simple story of a friendship between a tree and a boy, and one that is able to endure through the boy's life time. Perhaps it gives the child some degree of comfort believing that there is a security for love one can expect from a constant companion in life (it could be a parent, or a friend, or even God).
On the other hand, I'll admit, I never read this as a child, so in reading this as an adult, I did not like the story. I found the graphics distracting, and I wondered if I didn't have the picture of the boy (who grew uglier graphically as he aged - did the illustrator force an interpretation on us?), I would have a very different experience from the words, because my mind would have filled in the imagery that wasn't given to me.
One of my question is why we need to see this as a tale of codependency when the Silverstein named the tree "the giving tree". He didn't say "the tree" or "the apple tree" (which it was), but "the giving tree". So technically one can say that by nature the tree was doing exactly what it was supposed to do, and that giving is what it existed to do. This is very different from codependency, whereby one person "gives" as part of a pathology, not as part of one's sole nature.
Also it is obvious that there is an object of this giving in the story: the boy. We don't know if the tree was meant to "give in general", or "give to the boy", but throughout the story, the act of giving was all that the tree wanted, and made the tree happy, regardless of the boy's *response* (i.e. critics wanted the boy to be more appreciative, more grateful, more empathic toward the tree). This was confirmed by the tree's sadness primarily due to the lack of the boy's *presence*, not response. The boy has served his purpose in the story.
So it all depends on how you want to interpret, whether for yourself or for your child. Yes, it can be an allegory of codependency, of parasitism, and destruction of mother earth. This can also be an allegory for a friendship, or one's passion for one's art and cause (have you ever wondered why you give and give to your field of work, and it seemed that the constituents of that field take and take), or even an approach to life where you give in a way that rejuvenates - not drains - you, because the act of giving gives you the experience of joy as opposed to giving as a means of anchoring another person into a relationship that is unhealthy, or so you can gain approval.