The Giving Tree

Any blog about Children's Books would have to include the Shel Silverstein classic The Giving Tree

Author / Illustrator: Shel Silverstein 
Publisher: Harper & Row (1964)
Prices: Hardcover - $12.99, eBook - $11.99
Reading level: 1 to 8 years old
Interest level: Middle Grades 
Physical Characteristics: 7.5 x 10 inches, 64 pages
ISBN: 0060256656
Genres: Children’s Fiction, Picture Books

Subjects:
Trees – Juvenile Fiction
Generosity
Insensitivity

Annotation: A tree and a boy have a lifelong relationship filled with love, giving and sadness.

Summary:  There is a beautiful tree on a grassy hill.  The tree loves a little boy and the boy loves the tree.  He visits her every day and plays with her.  As he grows older he comes less and less.  It seems when he is a teen and a young man, he wants for money, human love, and material things.  Time passes and longer periods go between visits.  Then when he visits he wants so much from the tree, her apples, limbs, and trunk.  Every time he asks the tree gives freely.  By the end, the tree has nothing and the man has nothing.  But they are together.

Evaluation:
Again, this is a classic, which I just cannot love.  I love Shel Silverstein but this book depresses me to no end.  I never liked it as a kid, and could not quite put my finger on it but now that I am a mother, I know the reason it makes me so uncomfortable.  It truly represents a mother’s love and a mother’s sacrifice and how it can never be understood or appreciated by her children.  Depressing.  Aside from the content the drawings I love.  The drawings are pure Silverstein, black and white pen and ink.  They are classic and lovely.

Similar Titles or Authors:
Love You Forever by Robert Munsch
The Missing Piece by Shel Silverstein
Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak

Websites:
http://www.shelsilverstein.com/books/

Awards & Recognition:
14th Publishers Weekly All-Time Bestselling Children's Books list
85th School Library Journal’s Top 100 Picture Books list

Professional Reviews:
The New Yorker

New York Times

Not professional, but explains how I feel: Jezebel

All images (c) Shel Silverstein