I read this book as a kid and thought it was about a nice tree. I read it to my daughter last week and had to stop on page seventeen because I couldn't see the words anymore. She asked why I was making weird breathing sounds. I told her I had allergies. She said, "Dad, it's raining outside." She's eight. She's too smart for my lies.
Here's what nobody tells you about The Giving Tree: it's a completely different book depending on which character you are. When you're a kid, you're the boy. The tree is just there, like trees are, giving you stuff because that's what trees do. When you become a parent, you are the tree. And that's when Shel Silverstein reaches through sixty years of publication history and punches you directly in the feelings.
The Setup That Destroys You Later
The book starts simple. Boy loves tree. Tree loves boy. The boy swings on her branches, eats her apples, sleeps in her shade. The tree is happy. This part is fine. My four-year-old son enjoys this part because there's a picture of a kid climbing, and he is perpetually one broken arm away from being that kid.
Then the boy grows up. Stops visiting. The tree is sad. When he finally comes back, he's too old to climb and play. He wants money. The tree gives him her apples to sell. She's happy. He comes back older, wants a house. She gives him her branches. She's happy. He comes back older still, wants a boat to sail away. She gives him her trunk. She's happy, "but not really."
That parenthetical kills me. Silverstein puts it right there in the text. She's happy "but not really." He's not even hiding it. The tree knows what's happening. She does it anyway.
The Illustrations Do More Work Than They Should
Silverstein's drawings are famously spare—black ink, white space, minimal detail. But watch what happens to the tree across the pages. She starts full and leafy, branches everywhere. By the end she's a stump. Just a stump with growth rings and a flat top. The boy, meanwhile, is barely drawn differently. He's just... older. Hunched. The tree gave everything and got smaller. The boy took everything and just got old.
My daughter noticed this without me pointing it out. "The tree doesn't have any leaves anymore." Yes, honey. Yes, she does not.
The Part Where You Realize What You've Become
The boy comes back one last time, ancient and tired. He doesn't want much now—just a quiet place to sit and rest. The tree, now a stump, says she has nothing left to give. But she has a stump, and stumps are good for sitting. "Come, Boy, sit down and rest." And the tree was happy.
I had to put the book down. My daughter asked if we were done. I said yes. She said, "But you didn't do the voice for the tree." I don't have a voice for the tree. The tree doesn't talk much. She just gives.
Here's my problem: I can't decide if this book is beautiful or devastating or both or neither. Is it about unconditional love? Selfless sacrifice? Or is it about a boy who takes and takes from someone who can't say no? Is the tree happy or just telling herself she's happy? Is this a children's book or a warning?
What Your Kids Will Think
My daughter's take: "The boy should have visited more." Correct. My son's take: "Tree gone." Also correct. Neither of them cried. Neither of them seemed particularly moved. They experienced it as a story about a tree and a boy, which is what it says on the cover, so I can't fault their reading comprehension.
But I know—because my mom told me this exact thing when I was little and didn't understand—that one day they'll read this to their own kids and it'll hit different. They'll get to "And the tree was happy" and think about every time they gave me their last chicken nugget, or stayed up all night when I was sick, or let me take the car to a concert three hours away. They'll realize the tree isn't a metaphor. The tree is just what you become.
The Read-Aloud Experience
It's short—maybe five minutes if you go slow. The text has rhythm but it's not rhyming, not quite poetic. Just simple declarative sentences. "And the boy loved the tree. Very much. And the tree was happy." You can't do much with the voices because there's barely any dialogue. It's mostly narration. Mostly observation. It just states what happens and lets you feel however you're going to feel about it.
I've read it three times now as a parent. It has not gotten easier. I suspect it gets worse from here.
The Thing I Can't Shake
There's a reading of this book where the tree is a cautionary tale—where she gives too much, where the boy learns to take without reciprocating, where this is a story about boundaries and what happens when you don't have them. I see that reading. I understand it. Some people hate this book for exactly that reason.
But I also see the reading where the tree is just love. Not romantic love. Not conditional love. Just the kind of love that says, "I have this, and you need it, so take it." The kind of love that doesn't keep score. That doesn't need thank-yous. That's happy because you're happy, even when it's not really happy.
I don't know which reading is right. I suspect Silverstein didn't either. I suspect that's why this book has stayed around for sixty-plus years.