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Summary: A timeless tale of what true love should be.
Review: This is more than a story, for it cannot be forgotten once it has been experienced. Recommended for anyone, forever.
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Summary: We found this book very depressing and disturbing.
Review: My preschooler son received this book as a gift. I was not familiar with it from my own childhood, nor was my husband. After reading it for the first time, I thought it was the most depressing book I had ever read, and I didn't see how it was appropriate for a preschooler. My husband had exactly the same reaction. I really don't understand what this book is trying to teach. The boy never learns any kind of lesson from his terrible treatment of the tree. You're left at the end of the book feeling terribly sorry for the tree, and that's about it. Is this book supposed to be telling us you should continue to love others unconditionally even though they may take advantage of you and hurt you in every way possible? Personally, I think the lessons of love and self-sacrifice taught by Charlotte's Web are much more balanced and valuable. In the end, we decided that we didn't want our son exposed to this book, and we put it away. I am aware that this book has won many awards, but I really can't understand why.
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Summary: A cautionary tale?
Review: I read the same symposium that someone else mentioned hereIt set me to thinking about this book (which I still love) in ways Ihadn't before. If you look at this story as the boy's story and not the tree's, it's possible to see it as a cautionary tale. Remember, the Tree keeps saying, "Take this or that, and then you will be happy." But after chidhood, does the boy ever seem happy? Even after he's attained the wife and family he's looked for, he wants to build a boat to sail away, being "too old and sad to play". (Although, in all fairness, maybe tragedy took his spouse from him.) At the end, he looks dejected and worn. Could Shel have been issuing a warning that anyone who does nothing but take will never be truly content? Perhaps if the boy had learned to give in return, he would have had a more contented life.Although I do see the boy as finally learning his lesson toward the end. When he returns to the stump at the end, he has to know that the tree has nothing left to give. But he is finally ready to give the tree the only thing she ever asked of him...companionship. I kinda see in the old man's face a realization of what he's done and a repentance.There's another metaphor for this as well...the metaphor of parent to child. How many children never see or appreciate the sacrifices their parents have made for them till it is too late, or almost too late? This could have been another warning Shel was issuing. END
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Summary: so simple yet so powerful
Review: I got this book tonight in the mail after buying it on a whim. Perhaps I'm a little tired or just stressed out but I was half way through reading it and had tears running down my cheeks, it really is a beautiful book and I would recommend it to anyone.Now I want to read all of Shel Silverstein's books. Every adult and child should read this book and what a great present for someone.
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Summary: On e of the greatest children's books ever written!
Review: This book is amazing! I read this when i was a small child and cried my eyes out! The great thing is that I still do every time I even tell someone else about this wonderful book! It teaches children about love and self-sacrifice--something that is overlooked much to often in today's self-centered society!
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Summary: a story of true love
Review: I don't even remember the first time this book was read to me as I was so young. Throughout my whole life this story has followed me around in the back of my mind. About nine years ago something triggered the memory of this story to me and brought me to tears in the middle of a date while I was in college. From that point I searched for this book so that I could give it to my mother as a appreciation of her dedication to me. It was only today (10 aug 99) that I found it, and it still brings me to tears at the age of 27. This book explains what true love is all about.
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Summary: this book has a horrible message.
Review: I remembered loving this book as a child, but after reading it again after many years, I found it grotesquely disturbing. I almost felt like crying after seeing the way the tree was abused by the self-centered, greedy kid who never showed any gratitude for all the tree gave to him. It disturbingly gave me the idea that this was a metaphor for a married couple where the husband beats and neglects his wife. I know this book has a moral where people should give unconditionally, but this is a ridiculous mockery of that.
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Summary: 2 thumbs up and 2 toes up too!
Review: I got this book for my 8th birthday from my Aunt. I can't tell you how much I have enjoyed "The Giving Tree" over these years - I am 13 to come and I still love to read "my" book. GREAT JOB FOR WRITING A WONDERFUL BOOK! This book always makes tears come to my eyes in the middle and end of the book. It's the best book, yet!
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Summary: The story of life.
Review: I give this as a gift for all the weddings I go to. My hope is that we all learn that in life if we are to be happy we must learn that it is in giving that we find the happiness we desire.
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Summary: a personal reply
Review: I have a personal acquantance with this lovely book. For five long, glorious years, I dated this beautiful woman. We were very much in love, although it seemed that I was the one who tried the hardest to make sure she was happy. After a while, our relationship started to disintigrate, as all things of wonder usually do. I tried harder and harder to make things right, although it was more like a force of nature tearing us apart. I gave and I gave and she took and she took and she tried to give something back but, perhaps, it was well beyond her capacity at that point when things were somehow ruined. As we split, over a dark and miserable Christmas, one of my gifts was this book, with a very personal inscription written inside. It began, "To (---), my giving tree . . ." This showed absolute understanding not only of our lives and our relationship for so long (she was abandoned by her parents at 18 and I, a few years older, took her in and saved her life) and also a beautiful understanding of the message of this book: Love is cruel and there can only be one victor, no matter how much emotion is reciprocated. All things die in nature, be it a person, a plant, a flower or a feeling. Everything ends. I wish to thank my anonymous ex-girlfriend for this lovely gift. It helped me through many of the darkest hours of seemingly perpetual lonliness.
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