The Giving Tree
Silverstein, Shel. The Giving Tree. Illustarted by Shel Silverstein. Harper and Row, 1964. 64 pages.
The Giving Tree, written and illustrated by Shel Silverstein, is about a boy that takes and takes from a tree until it has nothing left. Years and years go by and the boy always finds himself by the tree ready to talk parts of it for something he needs, but gives nothing to the tree in return. However, the tree loves the boy so much that whenever he takes a part of it, it is beyond happy and doesn’t feel a bit of sadness and it doesn’t look for anything in return. Unfortuately, the boy kept taking and eventually there was nothing left for the boy to take so the tree was upset that she couldn’t provide for the boy any longer.
I think that the best element that enhanced the book was the repetition. Throughout the book Silverstein repeated the words “And the tree was happy”. I think that he did this in order to keep the kids locked into the book and to make it easier for them to follow along. By putting in that repetition, Silverstein constantly reminds the kids reading that the tree has always been happy after the boy took from it. Also another repeating line in the book was “And so she gave the boy…”, I think that this also helped the kids reading remember that the tree always gave to the boy and remind them how much she actually did give to the boy.
This book can teach philosophy to kids by having the tree be a symbol for a mom. The tree can resemble a mom because moms also give their kids things that they need even if it means giving them something of your own. Also moms will give to their kids as much as they need even if it means that the mother will suffer from it. But a mom loves her kids enough to do things like that just as the tree did in the book. It also can teach a kid that they should always be thankful for what their mom does for them because she does a lot without them even realizing.
And the tree was happy…
