The Most Controversial Children's Book in History

It has been called the most divisive  children’s book in history. It’s been ranked in both the top best and  worst children’s books of all time. Some have said they’ve “always hated  the story”.

It’s been called “depressing”, “sexist” and even “horrible” “a horrible book”  but also “beautiful”, “touching” and “inspiring”. The Giving Tree. It’s the Giving Tree.

I either  read this book or had it read to me a very long time ago and from then until now it never occurred  to me that someone might find the story ‘wrong’. While a tragic story might make you feel bad it  takes an entirely different kind of attitude to hear a story and re-write it altogether, like  it should have gone in a direction it didn’t, which is exactly what Topher Payne did in “The  Tree Who Set Healthy Boundaries”. The Giving Tree is a modern day parable, one that touches  on more subjects than I initially imagined, from self sacrifice, abusive relationships, the  environment, and parental roles, to the nature of life and love itself.

Exploring the history and  interpretations of this book took me to places I would have never discovered otherwise  and reopened old memories and old wounds. And speaking of trees. (I'm sorry) This video is sponsored  by MyHeritage.

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Shel Silverstein’s life and work was full of  clashing ideas and realms. He never planned to write for children and detested most children’s  books. He made all kinds of raunchy adult content, and I do mean all kinds.

He made cartoons for  Playboy Magazine, was a frequent visitor of the Playboy Mansion, and was a close friend of  Hugh Hefner. He never married and never planned to have kids, but had two children later in life.  His writing fluctuates rapidly between silly and juvenile, and somber and mature, sometimes within  the very same poem.

His illustrations switch from cute and endearing to surreal and outright gross  within a few page flips. Success and controversy seemed to follow him everywhere, from the very  beginning of his cartoon work for Pacific Stars and Stripes during his time in the military, to  his very last children’s book: Falling Up. While poetry books are his most recognizable works  he was also a prolific musician, song-writer and playwright.

Writing hits for people like  Johnny Cash, Judy Colins, and Waylon Jennings. He was also a singer and produced multiple albums,  even painting a self portrait for one of them, but his singing voice was often pretty grating. and after you've been having steak for a long time beans beans taste fine and after you've been drinking champagne and brandy you're gonna settle for wine He was fully dedicated to his art and was deeply involved in the production of all his works,  from the writing and drawing for the poems to the arrangement and layout of the pages  for publishing.

He rarely gave interviews, hated to give commentary on the messaging of his  art and the only elaboration he ever gave for The Giving Tree, his most famous single work, is:  “It's just a relationship between two people; one gives and the other takes. It has a pretty  sad ending. ” and “I didn’t start out to prove a message.

It started out to be a good book  for a kid. I imagine it reflects my ideas, but it is for children. I would like adults to  buy it and read it, and I hope they can find enough in it.

” If we are to analyze The Giving  Tree any more commentary on the book from its author ends there, but we can get a lot more  context for the story from his other works. After traveling the world for Playboy and  contributing cartoons for the magazine, one of Shel’s friends, a children’s book author  convinced him to write a children’s book. This first book would be called Lafcadio: The Lion  Who Shot Back.

The book tells a surprisingly long story about a Lion who eats a hunter and  acquires his gun. The lion learns to use the gun and slowly adapts to living like a human.  However, he eventually finds he can no longer fit into human or lion society.

The book ends  during a stand off between humans and hunters where Lafcadio simply. . .

walks away to be alone  for an indefinite amount of time. The Giving Tree would be published just one year later. In another ending in The Missing Piece, written a decade after The Giving Tree, a rolling circle  with a triangular section cut out of it searches for its “missing piece”, singing and exploring  life along the way.

Once it finds its missing piece, it rolls along and can no longer stop to  explore or sing, and simply drops the piece and rolls away, still searching for fulfillment. In  the sequel The Missing Piece meets the Big O, we get the perspective of a piece, which searches  for the right fit until it learns from a full circle that it can roll along by itself, wearing  out its edges until it can roll perfectly fine on its own. These are simple stories, often  described as modern parables or fables.

They communicate a message that both children and  adults can understand without being watered down. The illustrations facilitate this philosophy  further. Silverstein once complained about a trend in the 60s where children’s books were  illustrated to look like they were drawn by children: “I think the last thing a kid wants to see is  a drawing where he thinks he could have done it.

Kids want to get into detail in drawings" A long time ago before I had any knowledge in  art I thought I could draw like Shel Silverstein because he made shaky lines and so did I. Contrary  to his claim this didn’t discourage my interest in his books. The reality, however, is that drawing  something with clarity, readability, and humorous exaggeration, requires extreme skill, shaky  lines be damned.

Even more daunting Silverstein reportedly often drew without under-sketches or  even a pre-meditated idea of what he was going to draw. One of my favorite examples of his drawing  style is this elf riding on a bicycle. To show a person riding a front facing bicycle, with the  spokes coming out to indicate it as a 3d object, the energy of the feet on the pedals, and the  hint of chaotic movement with the tilt of the whole thing, is incredibly difficult.

Or take  this illustration of someone auctioning off a younger sister for sale, look at the crazy pose  with these crooked lines of action. The yelling mouth takes up nearly all of the head, the feet  face in opposite directions and a gaping negative space is formed by the sister at the end of this  absurdly long platform. His cartoons went from restrained and somewhat stiff to more and more  loose and improvised as his art style developed, but he always maintained hints of his signature  dirty-looking dot shading.

He was a master of using white space, an extreme example of this  is the huge voids in the often wordless adult cartoons in Different Dances. I think this  book showcases Silverstein’s high skill level in composition and visual storytelling.  White space is also used to great effect in The Giving Tree where entire pages are dedicated  to a single line to emphasize that line.

The key to the endings for Silverstein’s stories  is ambiguity. The Lion, the circle with the missing piece, and the missing piece itself  are radically changed by the end of the story, but describing anyone as “happy” or “sad” at  the end is too simple. Silverstein’s philosophy was that “happy endings tend to alienate  the child who reads them.

The child asks, ‘Why don’t I have this happiness thing  you’re telling me about? ’ He comes to think, when his joy stops, that he has  failed and that it won’t come back. ” I am going to be doing something that  Shel Silverstein would have hated: dissect the meanings of his most famous book,  because despite his insistence on moving on from the works he produced there is a lot that  The Giving Tree gives for us to dwell on.

The Giving Tree starts simply enough: “Once there was a tree, and  she loved a little boy. ” The tree is female. I would highly recommend  listening to Shel Silverstein himself read his story in the 1973 animated video that was  uploaded onto YouTube by farpman, as you get this other dimension of Shel’s weary sounding  voice and a light folksy soundtrack in the background.

You can hear the tree’s voice as he  imagined it: very motherly. The story continues: “and every day the boy would come and he would  gather her leaves and make them into crowns and play king of the forest. ” The story goes into the many ways the boy would play with the tree.

From the very beginning the  boy is taking things and the tree is giving them, he gathers her leaves, he eats her apples, and  sleeps in her shade, but the tree is continuously receiving the company of the boy at the same  time. The tree is very expressive throughout all of this despite not having a face, and no  two tree drawings are alike. The story continues: “and the boy loved the tree.

. . very much, and  the tree was happy.

But time went by. And the boy grew older. And the tree was often alone.

” After this we are hit with a relatively large paragraph of text. The boy returns and the  tree asks for the boy to play with her again, but the boy says he is “too big to climb and  play. ” The boy asks for some money, the tree responds that she has no money but offers her  apples so that the boy can sell them in the city.

“And so the boy climbed up the  tree and gathered her apples and carried them away. And the tree was happy. ” The boy once again leaves for a long time, but then comes back, the tree again asks the boy  to play.

The boy responds that he is too busy, and he wants to be kept warm and he  wants a wife and children so he asks for a house. The tree responds: “I have no house. The forest is my house,” (I always thought the tree was  just alone in some field somewhere because we never see any other trees but apparently  she lives in a forest.

) “but you may cut off my branches and build a house. Then you will  be happy. And so the boy cut off her branches and carried them away to build his house.

” Throughout the story we never actually see the whole tree. It’s full size is indeterminate. The  boy doesn’t seem to carry away that many branches and wouldn’t be able to build much of a house with  them judging from the illustration but this could be a snap shot of multiple trips.

“And the tree was happy. ” The boy leaves for a while again and comes back  as an old man. The tree asks for him to play, he says he is too old and wants to leave  this place.

He asks for a boat. The tree offers that the boy cut down her trunk to  make a boat. He does so and sails away.

“And the tree was happy. . .

but not really. ” Some remember this as the end of the story, but it’s not. The boy comes back as an even older man.

The tree apologizes and says she has nothing left to give  him. The boy remarks that he would be too old to play with her even if she did have more to give. “I don’t need very much now,” said the boy, “just a quiet place to sit and rest.

I am very tired. ”  The tree straightens herself up as much as she can and offers her stump to sit and rest on. The boy  rests.

The book ends: “And the tree was happy. ” On the surface, the story is not only  tragic, but downright aggravating. How can the boy be so ungrateful?

Take  and take until there is nothing left, and simply come back for more after he has  consumed for his own benefit without even a thank you? Some have suggested the story  should not be called “The Giving Tree” but “The Taking Boy”. And how can the tree, who is  clearly left alone for long periods of time, never receiving any compensation for this  endless giving, even apologizing when she has nothing left to give, simply not just tell the  boy to contribute to the relationship or go away?

This type of story is not unheard of. For  instance, Jesus once pointed out an impoverished widow who gave two small copper coins to a temple  treasury. Her donation “all she had to live on”, he considered more valuable compared to  the wealthy donors who gave large amounts out of their abundance.

But there may be  more to this story. With more context, it is shown Jesus was also criticizing  those who had created that poverty. In a Buddhist story Ryokan, a zen master, lives  in a little hut at the foot of a mountain, a thief visits and realizes there  are no possessions to steal.

So Ryokan gives him his clothes. The thief,  very confused, leaves and Ryokan remarks that the moon is so beautiful he wishes  he could have also given it to the thief. In: “The Giving Tree: A Modern Day  Parable of Mutual Responsibility”, Ertharin Cousin argues that the story is about  how giving endlessly without considering the long term outcomes ultimately harms both the tree  and the boy.

We wonder whether the boy is unhappy because he has been given everything and therefore  cannot fend for himself. Regardless of intentions the outcomes are what matter in the end. There  is a dearth of information about the boy.

We cannot confirm whether the boy succeeds with all  of the things he takes. Yes he takes the apples, but does he actually make money off of them?  Yes he takes the branches to build his house but we don’t know if he has a family or if he is  successful in starting and maintaining a family.

The only thing we are told explicitly  is that he made a boat and sailed away. We are at the mercy of the narrator in The  Giving Tree. We are repeatedly told that “the tree was happy.

” At the very beginning  when the child and the tree are playing and after each act of giving we are told  this, in the exact same way. Except, when the boy chops down the tree’s trunk. “And the  tree was happy dot dot dot but not really.

” It’s the most confounding line in the whole book. Why  does the sudden change happen here? This is the third act of giving without reciprocation.

Is it  because the tree has recognized the pattern and knows she will be left alone for a long time?  Is it because she has been reduced to a stump that she has a moment of clarity? She realizes  that she’s being used?

But then the final line is simply “the tree was happy. ” To add to the  confusion this is one of the only lines from the original book that is ABSENT in the 1973 animated  version. and so the boy cut down her trunk and he made a boat and sailed away and the tree was happy.

The only other changed lines are things like removing “ands”, adding some stuttering  in the dialogue to make it sound more natural, changing “swing from my branches and be  happy” to “swing from my branches and have fun” and other minor changes like that. This is  an entire significant line missing. Where is it?

Did they remove it for flow or something?  Or did Shel Silverstein change his mind? If we take the narrator as all knowing and  he says the tree is happy in the animation without deviation, then she is happy. 

If we do not take “the tree is happy” on face value, and insert that line of doubt, (but  not really) it suggests the tree is unfulfilled with its relationship with the boy. We are  dealing with a more complex emotional state. Shel Silverstein wrote another story about  bad parenting: A Boy Named Sue performed by Johnny Cash, is about a father who names  his son the typically feminine name, Sue, before abandoning him at three years old  so that he can be ridiculed and mocked and eventually grow up to be a tougher man.

These  are strange stories, yet there is an element of truth to both of them isn’t there?  At least, from a certain point of view. Shel Silverstein loves punchlines.

He was  firstly a cartoonist and a majority of his poems, even many of his songs have a line at the end that  wraps up everything in a comedic twist or a witty conclusion. The punchline in “A Boy Named Sue” is: And if I ever have a son… I think I'm gonna name him. .

. Bill or George any damn thing but Sue! Many of the punchlines in his poetry books are the drawings themselves, and the poems simply don’t work without them.

What is the punchline in the Giving Tree? “And  the tree was happy”? Is the whole book a practical joke on the audience?

Some propose that the story  is sarcastic even satirical. I propose the book is simply a matter of perspective. If you are in  a position in which you give a lot to someone, as a lover, or as a parent or guardian you may  feel like you are constantly self sacrificing.

If your love is powerful to the point of delusion  you may never consider you’re being exploited or raising a spoiled brat. If you believe in “tough  love” you believe you’re teaching them resilience in the face of hardship, without considering that  you might be causing harm. If we zoom out and are objective we see the absurdity in the idea  endless giving will make someone fulfilled, or that imposing arbitrary disadvantages on  someone will make them strong and self-sufficient.

And yet--good parents do have  to make a lot of sacrifices, and sometimes “tough love” is necessary in  a world that is inherently cruel and unfair. In a parenting article in the New York Times it  argues that neither the boy nor the tree are role models, and that being generous should not just  mean extreme self-sacrifice. The author imagines a conversation parents might consider having with  their children after finishing “The Giving Tree”.

“Imagine that the boy were not so selfish and  the tree not so selfless. Imagine that the boy hadn’t so quickly and completely  discarded the apples, but rather, had planted their seeds. Imagine the tree  had not been reduced to a lonely stump, but had been surrounded by a whole forest of other  trees.

Imagine a different ending where the boy, now grown, returned with his own  children to visit the tree. Imagine a new generation of children swinging from  the branches and resting in its shade. ” This is a speculative future, something  people do a lot with this story.

Firstly, the tree is already in a forest.  Secondly, the problem is the boy is young for most of the book, he does not have the foresight or  the will to start planting a whole new forest of trees. The world is filled with people who do not  have foresight; and when faced with the problem of “I need lumber for a house” what exactly do  you do that doesn’t require cutting down trees?

In Topher Payne’s “The Tree Who Set  Healthy Boundaries”. The later half of the story is entirely re-written. “I want a house to keep me warm,” he said.

“I want a wife and I want children and  so I need a house. Can you give me a house? ” And the tree said-- “Okay hold up.

This  is already getting out of hand. ” “Look I was fine with giving you the apples to help  you get on your feet. They’ll grow back next season anyway.

But no I’m not giving you a house. ” And the story goes on like that for a little while and the boy realizes he should be more grateful  and the tree is there for many generations. Now the story is funny.

The way its put  together by crude edits is amusing and it’s a cute alternate ending. But if anyone suggests this  is better than the original story. Excuse me for being crude, but in comparison this sucks balls. 

The original story is not meant to be comfortable, it is not meant to make you feel happy. It’s  a story that is filled with intense beauty AND sadness. This story lacks the grace or complexity  of message that the original has and this edit just turns it into a generic kids book.

Even  Topher Payne admits the original isn’t broken. There has been an interpretation that The  Giving Tree is an environmental message. We take everything from nature and if we do not give  back we will only be left with a lowly stump.

Some have called the book sexist because the tree, an  explicit female, gives everything to this boy who does not show gratitude. Shel Silverstein was born  in 1930, and slept with “hundreds if not thousands of women”, though he was reportedly always honest  with his intentions and he was a frequent visitor of the playboy mansion. He was probably sexist to  a degree.

The book is dedicated to “Nicky” one of Shel’s old girlfriends I don’t really know  what to do with that information. The story, especially the animation, gives a clear motherly  role to the tree and I suppose in that sense it upholds a stereotype, a certain idea of what  a mother should be. I don’t think this is a wholly bad or inaccurate stereotype not just for  mothers but for parents in general and as long as you’re approaching the story with a critical  eye there is little “damage” this book can do.

Finally, on the most extreme end, there has been  an interpretation that The Giving Tree is a tale of an abusive narcissistic or even sadomasochistic  relationship. During my research for this video I stumbled upon a whole ecosystem of youtube  channels that make videos about psychology with a focus on narcissists. Thousands of videos  on narcissists.

I’m gonna be upfront with this: I don’t like some of these channels very  much. I think many of these people are pop psychologists whose advice and observations  are okay at best and very dubious at worst. Some of them have questionable or no credentials,  and their videos rarely contain science based data or simply references of any kind, unlike  other much higher quality channels in the abuse genre.

Doctor Ramani is one of the better of these  channels because at least she is an actual doctor. Her interpretation of The Giving Tree is that  the boy is toxic and the tree is an enabler in an abusive narcissistic relationship, this is  certainly not an uncommon interpretation and her analysis is fine except for this part at the  end. The author of the book is a guy named Shel Silverstein right?

And I went down the rabbit hole like "who would right a book like this? ! " various reports I found that I again bless the internet shared that this was not a very nice guy didn't really seem to love kids so who knows what bizarre sadistic thing he was working out there in this book which is basically a story about an abusive relationship What reports?

Do you have these reports? Can you show them in the video or link them in  the description? There is nothing that indicates Shel Silverstein was a narcissist.

He was not  an angel, he was rude to people he disliked, friendly to people he liked, and was probably somewhat sexist like I mentioned before but by  all accounts he was a normal person, if anything an abnormally socially high  functioning person with a long and prolific career full of collaborations and healthy  relationships. It’s well known he did not “love” children but was perfectly capable of being  friendly to them. He had two children of his own, though he never married and could have  been around more for his daughter, but he did care deeply enough to dedicate  a book to her before she died young.

The Giving Tree likely reflected  his views on parenthood at the time, that being a little cynical. It’s one thing  to interpret a story but to make the baseless suggestion he had some “bizarre sadistic thing  working out there” whatever that means, is a bit irresponsible. Besides this I think Dr Ramani’s  interpretation is valuable to have.

As she notes, a message that prioritizes giving of oneself  above all is probably not healthy. A society that reinforces this message without scrutiny  will lead to people being taken advantage of. However, I disagree when people say this story is  glorifying an abusive relationship because this ignores too many elements and simplifies others. 

Shel Silverstein knows the story is sad and has a sad ending. The boy is never malicious. It  is never the boys idea to sell the apples, or to cut down the branches or the trunk,  or to sit on the stump.

He asks for things, but the tree always comes up with the  methods by which to get those things. Despite the boy getting these things he is  not made happy by them, he wishes to leave, he is clearly worn down by life at the end, he has  been cast out of Eden. And despite the tree giving these things and letting him out into the world  again she is only happy.

. . but not really.

In the end we are left with a pitiful triumph, a gentle  defeat. The boy and the tree are united again, but only as shells of their former selves. That  is not glory and yet there is still beauty in it.

The problem is I come at all of this with  a perspective that is still developing and I’m not someone who has ever been deeply  responsible for the health and safety of other people before. So I asked the two people  I know who have been, what they thought: These conversations brought me a few  points I’d never thought of before, but for my mom re-visiting The Giving Tree was so thought provoking that after my call she  started a book club meeting about it. Every time I visit my Grandmother she gives me  food; fruits, nuts, even herbs and vegetables from her garden.

She gives my mother and my brothers  food as well, even my dog. She gives us so much food we have to convince her to give us less food  because we would not be able to eat it all. If one day I said: “What if I gave you food?

What  if I did chores for you for the food? ” I think she would actually be insulted. Because that  is not the point.

She is not looking for 1 to 1 reciprocation. She wants us to be healthy, strong,  and well fed. She watches my videos.

Giving is her way of showing love. From this perspective,  the tree’s behavior makes a little more sense. This book has been debated a lot over  the past 60 years.

My idea for this video was that I set out to find an answer,  an interpretation that was the most correct, of course that was hubris speaking.  Even if there are some misconceptions about the book that have been propagated the  raw emotional disturbance is still there for many. People feel passionately about this story  and these feelings are unlikely to be resolved.

My theory is that even Shel Silverstein himself,  at least a little bit, regretted the conflict his most famous story made from it’s ambiguity.  Or maybe he simply softened his heart after the birth of his daughter, his first child.  That’s why he, I assume, removed the “but not really” line in the animation he recorded 7  years after the story was published, in an effort to make the story a little more soothing. 

Yes, the tree was indeed just happy to give. But maybe this is trying to fix something  that was never broken. The Giving Tree is a great work of art, it is famous and has stood  the test of time not because it is comfortable, because it is obvious, but because  it is ambiguous.

What people take the message of the book to be says more  about the person than it does the book. If there is a simple moral to the story I  see it as a duel moral: kids don’t be a jerk that only shows up when you want something and  never gives back. Adults, don’t be a doormat.

But this will happen, in part or in whole.  I did a survey of my audience just to get an idea of what they thought of the book. The most  thought provoking answers came from what people thought the message of The Giving Tree was.

One  commented: “People are endless caverns of need. ” Your child will eventually leave for long periods  of time to seek out their own way in the world, they will take a lot from you. You will  wish that they would contribute to you just like they did in the past.

They will  be worn down by life and they will struggle, and they will come back unhappy because the  search for happiness is a flawed premise in itself. Happiness is fleeting. Another  thought from the survey: the ending, “taken optimistically is a mother running  herself to empty and still being the rock her child can find solace in after so many years. 

Taken pessimistically, it is the story of a parent whose child causes them to self-destruct in an  effort to provide. ” You will be surprised what you will do for love, that you would never  do before. You should prepare for that.

If there is a happier note I can end on  it is this: Depending on the species, it’s not impossible for a tree to re-grow  from a stump. As long as the root system is intact a new tree can sprout from the old  stump, though it may look a little strange. The rules for the magical giving tree are not  clear, but I see no reason why it wouldn’t be possible that one day the tree will return,  changed certainly, but still alive and well.

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