The+Giving+Tree

The Giving Tree

    ** Summary: ** This story is about a boy and an apple tree. When the boy is young, he loves to eat the tree's apples, swing on the tree’s branches, and sit at its side… He even carves a heart on the tree, with the initials, "Me + T". The tree dearly loves him as well and gets satisfaction from making the boy happy. However, as the boy grows older, his relationship with the tree changes, as do the stages of the boy’s life. Although the boy seems to only visit the tree when he needs something from it, the tree keeps giving because making the boy happy, in turn makes it happy. During his adolescence, the boy uses her shade to spend time with a girl and even carves a new heart above the original one, with her initials instead. As more years pass, the boy, now a young man, returns to the tree, claiming he is more interested in making money than swinging on the trees branches and eating the tree’s apples. The tree gracefully offers him its apples to sell in the market. Later, the "boy" revisits her, and wants some wood to build a home for his wife and children. The tree, quite eager to make him happy, offers him its branches, so the “boy” took them as well. Once again, the boy returns (now in midlife), claiming he needs a boat to get away from it all, so the tree offers its trunk to be cut and used! The boy takes it and doesn’t return until many years later. Finally, when he is now an old man, “the boy” returns to the apple tree, which is only a lonely stump by now. The tree feels as though it has nothing left to offer to make the boy happy. Instead, this time the old man simply uses the stump to rest, and still the “tree was happy”.
 *  Author: Shel Silverstein **
 *  Grade(s): Kindergarten – 3rd **
 *  Topic/Theme: Unconditional Love; More blessed to give than to receive. **
 *  Gender Interest: Boys/Girls **

The fact that the tree is reduced to only a stump and the boy only appreciates it for what it is at the end of his life is very sad and may be the factor that has some questioning the appropriateness of the story for young children. No matter how you look at it, the book is certainly a conversation piece.
 * About the Book: ** This simply written children’s story has opened up plenty of debates, both over its meaning and its appropriateness for children. Readers take various stands behind the true identity of the “tree” and the underlying meaning of the storyline. Some find //The Giving Tree// to be a sad tale of codependency--about a tree that doesn't stop giving, and a boy who doesn't stop taking, while others feel as though this story carries the simple message of “its better to give than to receive”. On the other hand, many also believe the story is about the unconditional love a parent gives a child… the “tree” being the parent and the boy being a child. Some gather this stance by linking the fact that a parent gives what he/she can, fully aware (and mostly happy) that the child will grow to be independent of the parent. Within the story the boy/man clearly develops a life of his own.
 * WATCH The Actual '73 Giving Tree MOVIE Spoken by Shel Silverstein: ** [|The Actual '73 //Giving Tree// Movie Spoken By Shel Silverstein]

===Shel Silverstein’s Official Site for Kids:  [] ===

4,547 Lesson Plans, Worksheets, and Activities approved and reviewed by teachers for //The Giving Tree//: [] 