Rating: 
Summary: Life Changing Reading
Review: All I can say about this book is that it is astounding. It is so simple, yet the meaning is so deep that it has changed my life forever. I cry ever time I read this book because it is so sad, yet so wonderful. Please buy this book, it will give you a different outlook on life.
Rating:
Summary: a compelling book for a different reason
Review: When I lost my Mother many years ago, someone gave me this book. As I read this book, tears came down my cheek that I could not cry until the boy in this book loved the Giving Tree. This little tale had a life story that I needed to hear and feel. I have since given this book to people dear to me who are mourning a loss of a parent. If you don't know what to say, this book will tell a man or a woman of any age, the great tale of unconditional love. I cannot tell you how I love and cherish this book.
Rating:
Summary: Good Read!
Review: It teaches that you can only give so much and you must make good choices in life. Once the tree has been cut down there are no more apples;there is no shade, only a stump. One lesson learned as a stay at home mom is that you have to take time for yourself in order to take care of others and the "to do" list.
Rating:
Summary: A Profound Parable of Grace
Review: Two boys, Brennan and Saul, were childhood friends in Brooklyn, New York. As they grew up and took separate paths, Brennan became a Christian speaker and preacher, and Saul, a Jew, converted to Christianity as well. Years later upon meeting on the streets of New York, each man discovered that the other had also found Christ. In the course of the conversation Brennan asked Saul what he, as a Jew, thought about the person of Jesus. Saul told Brennan that he would think about it and get back to him the next day. When they met the next day, Saul, pen-named Shel (Silverstein), told the parable of the Giving Tree to Brennan as the answer to the question of what Jesus meant to him. Brennan urged Shel to have it published, and it has since become one of the best-selling children's books ever.This is a parable about the boundless nature of the Grace of God. Significantly Shel chose to write about a "Giving Tree", while God also chose the Giving Tree of the cross to demonstrate His love for us. We often come to God with petty request after petty request, sometimes ignoring the tremendous sacrifice that God has made which enables us to ask for anything at all. There is much symbolism in the book and certainly it has other applications for a broad audience, as parables often do. This is a life-changing story. One which should be read to children by adults and to adults by children. In fact the essence of this story has been told to us by our Heavenly Father for centuries. Buy this book. In fact buy several copies and give them away.
Rating:
Summary: The tree that gave too much...
Review: While not what you'd call a balanced relationship, it has a poignant-and further, disturbing-meaning to it. The boy, when he is young, enjoys the simple things-climbing the tree's trunk, eating apples, making leaves into crowns, swinging on branches, resting in shade. As he grows older, however, he becomes more and more materialistic. One might blame the tree for giving and giving to a person that is so selfish, but it seems that this is unconditional love we're talking about, here-that, and the tree has never learned otherwise. Some people think that the tree is foolish for giving to a person that never learns-but the tree has no choice in that her love for this boy hinders any alternative methods, and that she has no REAL friends to show her whom to invest such love into. She offers the "boy" everything she has, always yearning for the simpler days-asking him through the years if he wants to play with her, but he always refuses and takes and takes for his selfish needs until there is nothing left but a stump. The boy is never happy, thinking he will be after he gets a girlfriend, after he settles down, after he goes away on a long trip. A symbolism of the friendship between this pair probably gives a hint on how other people have regarded the man at first, and why all of them left him in the end. The tree, however, always kind, always gentle, always GIVING-despite all of the abuse she suffers through the boy's wanton "needs", forgives him. The only reason why she is sad after he leaves with the trunk is because she has nothing left to give. The story ends as it began. The "boy" is now old, alone, and makes a seat out of the stump-perhaps to contemplate his sad and sorry life. Some people thought this book was sexist. It IS an interesting point of view, but PLEASE-when I was younger, *I* don't remember ever caring whether the tree was female or the taker was male. I just saw it for what it is-a story about a tree that gave too much, and a boy that gave too little. I remember feeling sorry for the tree that was too generous with the wrong person, not that giving or taking too much was *right*. If people are so worried and analytical (the guy's using her-!) about this, discuss it with your kids. No need to get in a huff about it.
Rating:
Summary: The Giving Tree
Review: This is a wonderful book full of love, friendship and hope. Although it is written for children it is also a great gift for any adult. Buy this book for a friend, family member or even someone who has changed your life!
Rating:
Summary: "Classic"
Review: Shel Silverstein's art is often in his simplicity. A lengthy review would never do this book justice. Instead, I offer a single phrase..."It's a true classic".
Rating: 
Summary: Incredibly disturbing sexist fable.
Review: This enormously popular book has a boy taking and taking and taking from a tree as he grows up, until he has killed the tree to make his house, and as an old man is reduced to sitting on its stump. And the tree is happy to have him sit on it? If the tree weren't always referred to as female ("she" "her"), this would be an upsetting enough book, suggesting that nature is there to take from without giving back. But since the tree is written as a woman, the moral is that it's okay to take and take and take from a woman to the point of destroying her, and she's supposed to be happy if you eventually come back to her when you can't enjoy life's other pleasures. Am I the only one who finds this incredibly disturbing in a children's book?
Rating:
Summary: An eternal story
Review: When I was in high school, the principal frequently read this story aloud in assemblies (it was a Catholic all girls high school). You could view it as a modern parable about relationships (parents and children, people and God). When my children were born I held my new babies in my arms and read it aloud again and cried because it covers the cycle of life so beautifully. The story is about a little boy and his relationship to an apple tree. As the boy grows older his needs change and his relation with the tree changes. A first he needs protection and play. Then he moves into a stag where he needs "things" money, a house, etc. In the final stage he is an old man and his needs have become simple again, just to sit and rest. Throughout all of the phases of his life, the tree is there and unjudgementally supporting the boy.
Rating:
Summary: excellent children's lesson
Review: This book has a wonderful story about loyalty and friendship. The bashing of feminism is an added bonus.
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