The Giving Tree, urgh

[pegkerr]

I was looking at various critics' list for best 100 books, and ran across The National Education Association's list of 100 best books for children.

Right at the top is Shel Silverstein's The Giving Tree, and I think urgh, urgh urgh.

To me, The Giving Tree is a loathsome, evil book.

I'm a Christian, but to me the message of that book is just twisted, and certainly not a picture of what true Christian giving should be like, although I am sure there are many that would argue otherwise. It is clear that the author approves of the tree (Edited to add: or perhaps he doesn't; perhaps it's meant as a cautionary tale). The tree is always referred to as she, and she gives up her apples, her branches, and eventually the wood of her trunk to a selfish, greedy boy. When he is an old man, he sits on her stump. That's the payoff: "And the tree was happy."

I rewrote the story once because it disgusted me so much. I wish I had a copy of my rewrite (Edited to add: I remember now: I titled my rewrite The Sharing Tree). When he asked for apples, she told him to take half the apples and sell them for fertilizer to put around her trunk, and then she could make even more apples, so there would be some for him, but she would not be bereft. I think at one point she told him to apply yet more fertilizer so she would be even bigger and stronger, and then invited him to make a tree house in her (much larger) branches, using the extra wood she had grown big enough to spare, and invite all his friends over so that he would not be lonely. In the end, she was a mighty tree indeed, with many extra apples and many extra branches, with a breezy tree house up above and a whole happy, thriving community around her roots. My point was, she could give to him without maiming and destroying herself. And goddamn it, why did he have to be so selfish, anyway? Why did he (male) always get to be the taker, and she (female) always have to be the giver? Couldn't there be ways that he could take and she could give that wouldn't involve her destruction, but instead her being nurtured by him? Why was she happy that he parked his bony ass on her in the end, destroyed by giving herself up for him, when he had done nothing for her? How could the author approve of this?

I think it's an awful message, both for girls and for boys.

So? Do you agree or disagree?

Edited to add (again!): Thanks to mereilin, who provided a link to a symposium at the always interesting First Things about the book.

Comments

[papersky.livejournal.com]

You know, if she said that, if you have kids, your mother is never going to believe you're doing enough for them, no matter what.

There are actually several picture books that strike me as being about sick relationships between parents and children. There's one about a mother who sings a lullaby to her baby about "I will always love you best of everything in the world, I will always make everything right" which is all very well, but when he's grown up she breaks into his house at night to sing it to him and then when she's old he sings it to her. There's a very odd message there that I'm not sure the author or the publisher intended to be given to pre-schoolers -- or for that matter, new parents.

Then again, there's Can't You Sleep, Little Bear, in which Big Bear and Little Bear live together in the woods and try to work things out scientifically and tolerantly and lovingly, and Big Bear actually just wants to read his book (which is just getting to the interesting part) and with whom I've never had any difficulty identifying.

[kate_nepveu]

Umm, well, I don't recall her exact words and probably ought not have this conversation here, but 1) it was very much like that and 2) actions indicate that she doesn't think of it as prescriptive.

I will make a note of the bear book, thank you. (I will also get a copy of Diary of a Wombat because it is the cutest thing ever.)

[pixelfish.livejournal.com]

I'm pretty certain my mom sees that perspective of things too....but we sibs never asked her to "maim herself" or sacrifice herself so thoroughly, and we're trying our damnedest to get her back to the things she enjoyed, particularly since we're all grown up. But she's just so used to sacrificing that she feels useless otherwise.

[qwerty88.livejournal.com]

"Love you forever, like you for always, as long as I'm living, my baby you'll be."

[sienamystic.livejournal.com]

There's also that one about the fish, which has beautiful shiny scales that everybody envies, so of course the solution is for the fish to *rip off all its scales* and give them to his friends so nobody is jealous anymore.

The illustrations are so pretty, and the book is so horrible.

[peacockharpy.livejournal.com]

Oh, I hate that one. LOATHE it.

[cakmpls.livejournal.com]

I don't think the mother in "Love You Forever" says anything like "I will always love you best of everything in the world, I will always make everything right." What she sings is
"I'll love you forever
I'll like you for always
As long as I'm living
My baby you'll be."

I've always seen the mother's climbing into her adult son's room to sing to him as just a metaphor. I often wish I could hold my now-21-year-old son in my arms and sing to him the song his dad and I made up when he was a baby:
"What a wonderful, wonderful Ben-Ben . . ."
I wouldn't do it, for his sake, but I wish I could, for mine.

(And I'm sitting here crying as I write this.)

[nmsunbear.livejournal.com]

My mom gave me "Love You Forever," and though it was a sweet gift, the crawling into the grown son's bed scene is downright creepy.