Yep. Say what you will about Silverstein, the man knew how to craft a kid’s book. I read the reviews on Amazon one day, and one of the reviewers talked about how it meant different things to her kid as he got older. One could almost use it to gauge emotional maturity.
The lessons I see in it are as follows:
[ul]
Don’t be a little shit[/ul]
[ul]
Don’t let a kid be a little shit, or he’ll turn into a big shit[/ul]
[ul]
Don’t limit yourself to only one friend[/ul][ul][LIST]
[/ul]
Self-sacrifice is only good up to a certain point[/LIST][ul]
Trees can still talk even after they’re cut down[/ul][ul]
Giving can’t be contingent on getting something in return[/ul]
I spoke at length about this in some of those other threads, but to summarize: whether or not one enjoys The Giving Tree, I don’t think that whether or not it’s an enjoyable experience is really the standard to use to judge it, any more than I would judge an action movie by whether or not it made me question man’s proper relationship to society. I also think it’s really incorrect to suggest that the book is advocating that the reader emulate either character.
Literature is supposed to use narrative to express things about human nature and relationships that can’t be expressed through expository. For me, there is something true about the relationship between the tree and the boy, something authentic for all that it’s unfortunate. I think kids deserve literature that expresses these types of truths as much as adults do–though I think kids and adults alike also need fun. Luckily we live in a time and place where there is the luxury of having both art and entertainment in our lives.
I agree. It reminds me of Rakoff’s poem about the tortoise and the scorpion - about how it is human nature to seek out relationships, sometimes even ones that are potentially harmful to them.
For me, “The Giving Tree” is one of the great works of children’s literature. There is no inherent lesson in it. It is purposely ambiguos and subject to a multitude of interpretations. The entire purpose of the book, to me, is to encourage thought and discussion. Shel Silverstein wasn’t particularly moralistic in his work, nor was he didactic. The entire reason I find his work so engaging from when I was a child to being a 37 year old man is how my views on his work change as I age, and I am very much looking forward to discussing his work with my own children one day, to see how they interpret “The Giving Tree,” and to see how they respond to other interpretations of this story.
See, what I love about Shel is that he doesn’t talk down to kids and he doesn’t write moralizing fables. He doesn’t quite treat children as “mini adults,” but he gives them a lot more credit at being able to grasp subtlety and ambiguity than most children’s writers do, and he gives them a space for independent thought, since he’s not trying to shove a moral down their throats. I should hope that by the time my kids get to “The Giving Tree,” they have a reasonable idea of what is right and wrong, and no longer will need formulaic morality tales to keep them occupied.
“The Giving Tree” is only “cloying and sentimental” in one possible reading of it. With another reading (like the OP’s), it becomes a much darker book. Is this a story of unconditional love? Or is this a story of an abusive relationship? Or is this the story of parenthood? Or is this just a simple story of a selfish, asshole kid? Etc. It’s all of those things, and that’s exactly why I want my children to read it. So they can see the many different angles to approach a story, and that a simple story has multiple viewpoints with multiple interpretations. That life is not a black-and-white morality play, and how different readers come away from the same story with completely opposite interpretations.
It’s a fable. It’s intended to provoke thought, not to supply a particular message. Which it does, given the intensity of the (often contradictory) responses to it.
(emphasis added) The Giving Tree is considered a toddler’s book, or, at the most, appropriate reading for children under five. I can’t tell if you think that your children will encounter “The Giving Tree” for the first time in high school, or if you think a 4 year old should be making independent moral determinations, but, either way, you’re wrong. I guarantee that at the age your children will read The Giving Tree they will take from it a formulaic morality tale that, arguably, is not even there.
Fine. Then we disagree. I think by 4 or 5, kids are more than smart enough (at least the ones I’ve met) that you can have a conversation about the story from the point of view of the tree and the person, and ask questions to lead them to realize that this isn’t a simple morality play.
