Rating: 
Summary: LOVE IT!
Review: This is a great book. I read this book when I was a kid and it is so awesome that I can now read it to my children. This book has a really good message about giving. This is a good example of how a parent would gives to their child.
Rating: 
Summary: A children's book which never loses its power
Review: The Giving Tree is a beautiful book about a tree who loves a little boy. In the beginning, the love the two share is enough to make them both happy. As the boy grows older, his needs change and the tree gives him everything in order to help him achieve happiness. When the boy is gone and the tree is left with nothing, she is happy, but not really. Eventually the boy returns and the tree has nothing left to give, but the boy has changed and no longer wants anything from the tree other than the companionship they once shared, and both are happy once again.I fell in love with this book the first time it was read to me, and my feelings have never changed. As I child I knew it was a sad book, but I didn't know why. Now that I am an adult, I can understand the cost of unconditional love and I know why the tree was sad. The fact that this book inspires so much debate is a testament to the power of Shel Silverstein's writing. There is a lesson in this book and a powerful message. For me, the key point is that in the end, the love the tree had for the boy was vindicated by his return- older, wiser, and more appreciative. My mother bought me this book when I was young because she thought it had a poignant lesson to teach. My mother tells me that the tree is every mother, and that the sadness felt by the tree is the sadness every mother feels when her child grows up and grows apart. She says every mother's hope is that her child will return someday, wanting nothing more than to to sit together in silence and to be happy. Anyone who has ever loved someone enough to let them go will understand the painful choice highlighted in The Giving Tree. I love this book and I give it to special people in my life to celebrate our friendship. I higly recommend this book to adult and child alike.
Rating:
Summary: Beautiful book for all ages
Review: This wonderful book teaches the joy in giving and how we tend to take all these for granted! Silverstein has expressed the complexity of relationship between parents and children in such a simple form that is easy for all the understand.
Rating:
Summary: A Tree with a heart.
Review: "Once there was a tree," Shel Silverstein (1930-99) wrote in the opening pages of this 1964 children's classic, "and she loved a little boy." Although Silverstein's story is subject to several interpretations, it will touch children of all ages. Just as the little boy character returns to the tree at various times throughout his life for purposes of play, shade, apples, income, lumber, and repose, I have returned to Silverstein's GIVING TREE throughout my life. And with each subsequent reading, it has revealed something new to me about the nature of unconditional love. THE GIVING TREE is a good teacher for young and old alike. For me, it is as much a timeless parable about our give-and-take relationships with each other, as a wake-up call about our unthinking exploitation of natural resources. G. Merritt
Rating:
Summary: Complexity captured simply
Review: This is a very painful book, but I think children understand it in a way that parents can't. I read this book as a child and it always moved me- I think because it beautifully captured the complexity of the parent-child relationship. The parent nurtures and supports the child, and the child must take in order to grow. The pain I felt reading the book reflected my own internal conflict as a child, eager to take and grow, necessarily selfishly, without regret, to (ironically) gain independence from the parents who nurture. Silverstein may oversimplify the tree and boy for adults' tastes, but children relate very well to the underlying complexity of his message. The end is profoundly sad not only because the tree is gone, but because when the boy is old and tired, the taker, after his life-long pursuit to find happiness, love, and success, returns to the empty provider and sits out the remainder of his days with the memory of the parent who nurtured him. All of these emotions touch us; whether or not we choose to share them with our children through this allegory is an important parental choice.
Rating:
Summary: I think you misunderstand
Review: I think many of you 1-star reviewers are misunderstanding Silverstein's intent. If you knew anything about him, you would know he was an environmentalist and a lover. The point of the book is unconditional love. Not narcissism (you'll notice the book is not called "The Greedy Little Boy"). If you have children, you'll know that you do give for them constantly and that you would give them anything in your power. We give up sleep, financial success, free time, jobs, millions of different choices. It's the so-called opportunity cost.
Silverstein does portray the boy as uncaring or -more accurately- distracted from what he takes. But his point is that the tree loves him. Do your children always realize what you give them? Do you love them anyway the next time they come and ask for something? How about God? (I'm not a zealot, but this is the point) Do you always take the time to think of the ways you've been blessed, or do you occassionally ask for more?
What my children have taken away from this book (and they pretty much have it memorized) is that giving does feel good (the tree was happy), that sometimes it does deplete your own "resources" and that love lasts a lifetime. Those ARE messages I want my kids to have. I'm hoping it will direct them away from narcissism.
Rating:
Summary: The Giving Tree
Review: This is one of my alltime favorite books. It is one of only a couple of books from my childhood that I remember and still enjoy reading. I hope that when my son is older he feels the same way. I would recommend it to everybody.
Rating: 
Summary: Dangerous Message
Review: I suppose I malign "The Giving Tree" at my own risk, but here goes. The message in the book is not one we can afford to give our children (or adults) anymore. Our environment is suffering such serious degradation from our taking (its "giving"), and a book like this only reinforces a selfless, limitless idea of nature where the environment can give and give to support not only our basic needs, but our greed and needless desires, without real life consequences. The message is great, but the the vehicle used to convey it is no longer appropriate for a nation and world that needs to wake-up to what's happening on this small planet.
Rating:
Summary: Top Childrens Book
Review: ... People who were jilted in life object to the book! The book EXPOSES children to the reality of giving, where it is beautiful where it perhaps is too much. ...
Rating: 
Summary: 1 star or 5 there is no middle ground
Review: You pick up the Giving Tree. You read it. You are touched. You think to yourself, this is a wonderful book! However, as you are finishing the last sentence, something starts to bother you. What was the moral of the story? What was it? you think to yourself. Is it, that you must give your all to the person you love? Is it that you should sacrifice everything you have to them? This train of thought becomes troublesome, and one of two things happen: 1) You realize that the book teaches a horrible lesson(or leads the reader to it unintentionally) or 2) You squash the bad thoughts and tell yourself that moral doesn't matter, and the story is about love, and don't think about it any more. Then you get on Amazon and write a 5 star review.
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