2023 EDIT: Part of my 2023 clear-up, of books I no longer like, or am no longer interested in, or remember well as standing out, or find as special anymore, or I otherwise will not miss.
Final Score: 3.5/5
Original Review:
It is a sad book. Made sadder by the fact I've only just read it today for the first time in my life. Although I can imagine how it would have scarred me as a child.
'The Giving Tree' is a delicate, articulate, mystifying, deceptively simple and alarmingly complex picture book, with a message-within-a-message as old as time; like a message in a bottle in the ocean. The understated illustrations on a plain white background are perfect.
'The Giving Tree' is either a romantic fable, a sweet yet sad fairy tale about growing up, or a tragedy. The reason why I do not rate it five stars, despite how much I get misty-eyed whenever I think about it, is because I'm just not sure what the author's intent was; what the core moral is, if it has one. I know the theme is of love and giving and taking, and I am all for multiple layers and interpretations in stories. But this simply-presented tale becomes confusing to me the more I think about it, and the less I feel for it with my sensitive heart. I wonder whether I'm being manipulated.
'The Giving Tree' is either a tragedy about how blind love is and how it can make you just give and give and give until you're be left with nothing, not even a thank you; as nothing but an old stump. Or it's about how love, regardless of what gets in your way in life, is persistent and unending; something that never wavers or demands much in return, because it's unconditional.
The tree is an innocent soul full of compassion and the need to make the one she loves happy, but with those traits alone she is a complete doormat. Perhaps she symbolises a doting parent? An abuse victim? Someone who, like a real tree, is unmoving and stuck in one place forever due to being dependent on one who takes advantage of her and is toxic and ungrateful. And the boy, as he grows older, only visits the tree when it's convenient for him, and he just takes and takes and takes from the tree without so much as a thank you or any sign he truly loves and respects her in return.
Not once in the book is this relationship presented as being healthy or happy in of itself, and indeed it shouldn't be, because it clearly isn't. Is it to show how ungrateful most people are, towards other people and the earth? Is it an environmental story as well as a love/tragedy fable?
I don't know. Maybe it's meant to show how much really can be taken from it...
'The Giving Tree' has an amazing quality where on the surface it is a simple and easy - and beautiful - book to follow, where you'll be left weeping by the end. But what lies underneath is so much subtext that it seems to be confused overall. Quite an unsettling quality for a children's book to have.
But I prefer to see it as a tragic love story for children, with an important message about being grateful to others and that love should be a partnership between equals. In whatever context, the ultimate power couple should be about a balance of giving and taking on both sides - materially and emotionally. The tears I shed upon reading 'The Giving Tree' are at the unfairness of it all, and I like to think that that's just right.
Final Score: 4/5
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