Is the Giving Tree a chump?

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

I'd like to get some elaborated discussion of going this rather than just votes in the poll and pithy, meme-y answers, because perspectives on this book are as pure a cross-cutting cleavage as any I know: I've heard it, or one or more of its perceived messages, both savaged and praised to the stars by everyone from unreconstructed communists to paleocon cranks; Richard John Neuhaus had a whole symposium on it in the mid-90s where it split the people then writing for First Things down the middle; and parents and teachers aren't exactly of one mind on it either.

[All Along The Watchtower]

I don't think so, but it still reads to me as a fairly sad story of unreciprocated generosity and how that can negatively affect both parties over time.

[Stranger in a strange land]

I don't think so, but it still reads to me as a fairly sad story of unreciprocated generosity and how that can negatively affect both parties over time.

The story is incredibly sad and toxic, teaching children to keep asking for more until nothing is left. On a more literal level, it teaches a terrible lesson about caring for the environment. Fortunately, someone has created an alternate ending, called The Tree who Set Healthy Boundaries, which are free to print and paste over the 2nd half of Giving Tree.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

I don't think so, but it still reads to me as a fairly sad story of unreciprocated generosity and how that can negatively affect both parties over time.

The story is incredibly sad and toxic, teaching children to keep asking for more until nothing is left. On a more literal level, it teaches a terrible lesson about caring for the environment. Fortunately, someone has created an alternate ending, called The Tree who Set Healthy Boundaries, which are free to print and paste over the 2nd half of Giving Tree.

I don't think it's at all obvious that Silverstein wanted the story to be taken at face value, but that's definitely how it's customarily used, especially by people who give copies of the book to new mothers (which is a little like giving a newly enlisted soldier a copy of All Quiet on the Western Front).

[Del Tachi]

The lesson I think is most appropriately drawn from the story is that, even when we think we have nothing left to give, there is always companionship and love, which are the most important gifts.

[Stranger in a strange land]

I don't think so, but it still reads to me as a fairly sad story of unreciprocated generosity and how that can negatively affect both parties over time.

The story is incredibly sad and toxic, teaching children to keep asking for more until nothing is left. On a more literal level, it teaches a terrible lesson about caring for the environment. Fortunately, someone has created an alternate ending, called The Tree who Set Healthy Boundaries, which are free to print and paste over the 2nd half of Giving Tree.

I don't think it's at all obvious that Silverstein wanted the story to be taken at face value, but that's definitely how it's customarily used, especially by people who give copies of the book to new mothers (which is a little like giving a newly enlisted soldier a copy of All Quiet on the Western Front).

He very likely didn't but the problem is how people interpret the work, similar to how so many people think "Born in the USA" is a Patriotic Anthem or how American History X has neo-Nazi fans.

[Electric Circus]

You could save the entire story with a sketch on the back cover showing hundreds of trees that the boy had planted during his lifetime. But would that still be a classic?

Maudlin children's literature isn't for me. I prefer the friendship illustrated in Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel.