The "Oh, You Shouldn't Have" Tree

I don’t know if I hate The Giving Tree because I see qualities of myself in the eternally benevolent tree, in the impossibly greedy, selfish boy, or if it’s because this book is just plain depressing.

The fact of the matter is it’s just not one of my favorites. It wasn’t a favorite of mine growing up and now, as a parent, it’s not one of my go-to reads with my own child.

The illustrations of the boy, one of the two central characters, are way off. He is first introduced as a young boy of under 10 years of age. 

Boy, age appx. 8 years old
Coincidentally, this was the last time the boy is seen smiling. Ever.

Hanky Panky under a Tree
Note: Over the course of the boy's life, which by all accounts is several centuries, the markings on the tree never move up. Shenanigans!

The next time we see Boy, who should, by all accounts, be a young man in his early 20s, he has the posture and facial features of someone twice that age. From here, it’s all downhill. 

I'm ready to build a house. I've also completed my AARP application.

Boy should be in his 30s maybe, longing for a home of his own, but he looks more like the Grumpy Old Men in The Muppets. 

No, I don't want your apples. I don't have any teeth!

After he’s built his house, Boy comes back needing wood for a boat, presumably to celebrate his retirement, but he looks not a day shy of 100. 

Finally, Boy makes one last visit to Tree to reflect on life and, I imagine, how rotten and selfish he’s been, and he’s a shriveled, pruny shell of his former self.

"That's OK," said the boy. "I don't know where I am, how I got here, or why I'm talking to a stump. I also appear to be wearing a onesie."

Since the book was written in 1964, Boy missed President Kennedy’s challenge to all Americans to ask not what the Tree can do for them, but rather what they could do for the Tree. If you ask me, they both had a good run. The Tree and Boy, not JFK. Tree realized many different ways she could help others and reinvented herself more than Madonna. Boy, with his insatiable greed and desires, went on to live a long life. Judging by the illustrations, he gave Methuselah a run for his money.

Now this is just my opinion. I am neither a children’s author nor an illustrator, so take my   feedback as what it is...a candid review of a joyless story featuring a martyr and a turd.

The end of the book and the end of my joy.