babytoadstool 's review for:

The Giving Tree by Shel Silverstein

4.0

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Overview:
This book is about a tree and a boy. And things were good and the tree was happy. But as the boy grew older, the tree saw him less and every time the boy came back to the tree he asked for something and the tree gave and gave and gave.

Thoughts:
I remember growing up with this book and every time I finished it, it made me think. Why would this amazing tree give this boy so much? Why does this boy ask for so much?
Without looking it up and seeing other peoples comments on it. This is my interpretation on it.

Spoiler

When we are young (and this isn't talking about every kid because everyone is different) we have a lot of curiosity and we are adventurous and want to see the world and everything is new to us. And this boy played and hung out with the tree. As we grow older though, we start to loose that curiosity and everything being new because we have seen a lot of it at this point in our life. And days go by quicker and so does time. We get caught up in life. And so this connects in the story when the boy isn't a kid anymore and doesn't come as often to visit the tree. Throughout this book the boy is greedy. He shows no sign of appreciation or respect to the tree. He just takes. And I wonder if that connects with society. We tend to take things and we are heavy consumers. And most people don't care or second guess where their stuff is coming from. Again this could well be incorrect or I might have missed the point of the story completely. But that's what I got from this book.

Overall this book is beautifully written and I love how simple the art but it's a nice kind of simple.