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Summary: Beautifully simple, simply beautiful
Review: Unlike the late, great Mr. Silverstein, I find it difficult to put into a few words how I feel about this wonderful book. Boy meets tree, tree gives of itself in every way possible, boy and tree are forever linked--not unlike the bond between mother and child. The unconditional love that radiates from this fable touched me in ways that I couldn't have believed possible. What an amazing man we have lost.
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Summary: A glorious tale of self-sacrifice
Review: A beautiful story of self-sacrifice, a tree who, over time, gives up everything to aid the little boy she loves deeply. My little sister cried when she read it, but not because of the undeniable note of sadness that runs through the book. She said that the tree was completely beautiful.Though people see this book as a negative gender stereotype, I prefer to see the tree as being a mother figure for the boy, self-sacrificing for the child she loved.
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Summary: The best children's poem/book ever written....
Review: Shel Silverstein uses everyday simple folks language to express the emotion of complete, unconditional love and selflessness. His prose is tender and concise, sweeping with emotion. This is a book every adult should read for themselves and one that every child should own and cherish.
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Summary: Simple and Elegant
Review: The Giving Tree by Shel Silverstein remains to this day a book of immense beauty and dignity. I am saddened that so many people respond to this book in a negative connotation. It is a book I am proud to share with friends, family, and even strangers as it exemplifies the beauty of giving in every way. For me, any sadness felt by the book overwhelming emotions is uplifted in the end by it's simple last line. For it is a moment in which both the boy and the tree are truly happy. I believe that as that once precocious child and now elderly man sits atop the old stump, he realizes everything that she has given him. Sacrificing even her body. For in the end..."the Tree was happy."
Rating: 
Summary: A grim tale
Review: Do children generally enjoy this book about a long-suffering tree that gives up everything -- her fruit, her limbs, her trunk -- for the boy she loves? Do they appreciate the irony that the paper pages of the book itself, a skin imprinted with an indictment of the undeserving, uncaring boy, represents the tree's final, equivocal offering?
Rating: 
Summary: The Giving Tree
Review: Mommies beware, this book is not for every child. When my 4 year old asks "read me a book", she usually means "read me this book several times over". After hearing The Giving Tree, she was silent. I asked her if she wanted me to read it again, and she said "no, take it back to the store". This is coming from a child who loves books and greets me at the door with "what did you buy me". What was her dislike? "He cut down the tree" A sensitive child will be disturbed by abusive treatment of the tree by the boy it loves.
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Summary: mixed emotions
Review: I can remember reading this book to my son a few years ago over and over again, he loved the book and the ideas of caring and sharing, as that's only one level to this story. What about the side of the story where the tree is not happy because of what is expected of her? Certainly there are multiple viewpoints of this book, but I will leave you with one: It's about the mutilations females undergo in the interest of pleasing males.
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Summary: Horrible message?
Review: Those who say children should not read this book obviously never read it as a child. I was loved the story, as much as I was saddened by it. The goodness of the tree and the selfishness of the boy really touched me. Any child can see that they are not being told to be selfish just like the boy, but that they should strive to appreciate all that people do for them. Even as a preschool child that message went right home to me and I've never forgotten it. Thanks, Shel Silverstein.
Rating:
Summary: The Giving Tree
Review: My 4 year old whose name happens to be Nicky is in love with this book. He knows it by hart and "reads" it to his 7 month old little brother! When we read it together you can tell when the tree is happy or sad by the look on his face. It's a great story for a wide age range including adults. Highly recommended
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Summary: Though not religious...
Review: Shel Silverstein and a friend were sitting in a cafe oneafternoon, and Silverstein was asked, "How would you defineJesus?" He went home and wrote this indescribably magnificent work about the ideal behavior of what, to the passerby, would seem to be an ordinary apple tree. It works on SO many levels; of course, you have the environmentalist argument that the tree is a representative of the earth that man rapes with his plows and his highways. However, you also have the viewpoint of a being whose only desire in life is to please the person she loves...the very definition of the Christ, willing to give everything up for man's well-being. Contrary to the beliefs of some "readers," it has nothing to do with gender--not many things do, but people heedlessly assign stereotypes and negative connotations to anything that can be construed in a sexual manner. The tree happens to be female in this story. It makes no difference. Her love knows no bounds...no race, no economic situation, no ulterior political motives...she just is. And her simple existence is a testament to the hope and wonder that Silverstein (and many others, hopefully) can find in the minutiae of life. I don't follow any particular religion per se...but I think that the fact that as long as people like Silverstein and dreams of characters such as the tree still exist, we must be headed in the right direction. This book is also an initiator of self-analysis...how much do you share with people that desire/want/need something that you can give...and how willing are you to do so? The tree gives without question, without thinking, and is satisfied simply to have the companionship of the boy whenever she can. The tree is the mom that spends her lunch break running children's forgotten homework to the school at the cost of not eating. The tree is the poor older sister who has two hungry younger siblings and one banana to feed the three of them, of which half goes to each brother and she eats the peel. The tree is everything that you can find in people in this world that still fits under the category of "good."
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