Blog 9: Giving Tree

I know I always liked the Giving Tree growing up, but I never really had the opportunity to really explore the social issues surrounding Silverstein's story.  It certainly has a lot to offer about happiness and love.  The central theme of the story is giving and receiving.  In this story, children can think about what it means to be happy, and whether receiving truly make them happy.  The story also sheds some light on how it can be so easy to fall into selfishness and greed.  The tree made sacrifices out of love that was initially incomprehensible to the child, but one wonders what that truly means as a whole.  Because these ideas are relatively simplistic, they offer some spaces for curiosity and deeper thinking from the reader.

As people get older, they need a "provider" of sorts, and its important not to take advantage of it.  To me, the boy in the story failed in this test.  Its not really clear wether the boy truly understands self-sacrifice.  We should see ourselves in the boy and hopefully change our perspective on giving and receiving.  Its a sad thought, but an important one.