The Giving Tree

      First, let me just point out that Shel Silverstein was one of the scariest-looking people on Earth. Anyway, he could write, though; even if most of his stuff is rather strange. But The Giving Tree(New York: Harper and Row, 1964) is one of the best picture books ever written, I'd say, because of the sacrificial love the tree displays.

     The plot is simple: There is a boy who climbs a tree and eats her apples, swings from her branches, carves messages into the bark of the trunk, etc. Eventually, though, he gets older, and then he carves a girl's name into the trunk, not spending as much time with the tree. This makes the tree lonely, but she still loves the boy. He says that he would like some money, and while the tree doesn't have any(being a tree, obviously), she suggests that the boy gather her apples and sell them in the market. So he climbs into her branches again, "and the tree was happy."
     Then the boy goes away again for a very long time. Then he comes back as a middle-aged man, and asks if the tree can help him get a house. (This doesn't make much sense if you think about it too long.) The tree has a house already - the woods - but she suggests that the boy cut off her branches and make a house out of them. (What kind of house can be made out of chopped-up tree branches, I've always sorta wondered.)
     He stays away for another very long time, returning as an old man seeking to get away from everything. So the tree says that he can cut off most of her trunk to use as a boat, if he wishes. (The picture shows that the trunk gets chopped off at the girl's name he'd marked all those years earlier, leading me to think for a long time that he had gotten married to the girl "Y.L." and then they divorced. But seeing how elderly the man is on writing this review, I think it's more likely that that girl died of some sickness.)
     After another long time, the tree is just a wizened stump, and the boy is now ancient and feeble. The tree apologizes that she has nothing left to give him, but the boy says that he is too old and weak to do anything except sit and rest. So the tree admits that stumps are very good for resting upon. "'Come, Boy, sit down. Sit down and rest.' So the Boy did. And the tree was happy."

     This book can be seen as a great depiction of the tree's selfless love, which is how I usually see it. Other people have complained that the relationship between the tree and the boy is abusive, which I can kind of see, too. The boy never thanks the tree or does anything for her; he just always takes. I guess it just depends on how you wanted to look at it. Either way, this is one of the most influential picture books of the twentieth century.

#Wesley