The Most Controversial Children's Book in History

Correction:
16:10 Yes it is probably moreso that the tree is "happy but not really" because the boy says explicitly that he is sailing far away presumably forever, probably less so to do with "recognizing a pattern" lol. I should have explicilty said this as a likely interpretation.

3D model by SyncedUp
Special Effects help by Whatsitlike
End Track "To Sit and Rest" by Ryan Probert

Music in order of Appearance:

Silent Hill 2 OST – Fermata in Mistic Air
Godmode - Blacksmith
C418 – The Weirdest Year of Your Life
Zelda Jazz (Dark World)
Home – Native
Humbird – Hymn for Whom
Accelio – Cyber City – Jazz Club (Featuring ROOXG)
Silent Hill 2 OST – Prisonic Fairytale
Accelio – Cyber City – Soundboy
nobody – recalling memories that never existed
C418 – Excuse
C418 – Chris
Chris Zabriskie – I Am Running with Temporary Success From a Monstrous Vacuum in Pursuit
Chris Zabriskie – I Am a Man Who Will Fight For Your Honor
Ryan Probert – To Sit and Rest (Custom Track)

[SolarSands]

Corrections:
5:45 - I say "humans and hunters" and I meant "lions and hunters"
16:10 Yes it is probably moreso that the tree is "happy but not really" because the boy says explicitly that he is sailing far away presumably forever, probably less so to do with "recognizing a pattern" lol. I should have explicilty said this.
37:11 - 1973 is 9 years after 1964 not 7

[lenchasanchez]

Both characters are unavoidable aspects of the human experience. You’ve been “the boy”, you’ll be the tree.

[__-begk]

People really seem to confuse "I don't like what's happening in this story" with "this is a bad story"

[azeroi]

I remember getting this book read to me and my class. We were all very young, but we all understood very well what the book was trying to say. The conversation the class had was the best classwork-conversation we had had, or were ever going to have. A lot of us cried, and we practically begged the teacher to let us write thank you notes to family. She let us bring paper out to snack time, and nearly the entire class wrote a note. Some of us drew pictures. A group of triplets worked on a dance number to present to their single mom. I think that the book was and still is very important to be read to children, because even the bratty-est of us went home that evening and reminded our parents that we love them, and are forever grateful.

[theeducatedfool]

Presumably he’s got a family offscreen wondering why their father periodically goes off to talk to the magic trees that he’s known about since he was a child

[airshow]

It pisses me off when people interpret a work of art negatively and then go, "this means the creator is a bad person" or "the creator is a bad person, i guess that explains this terrible work of art."

What a terrible, reductive way of reading creativity.

[shgurr]

My siblings and I used to prank each other by hiding this book under our pillows. The self portrait always scared us xD

[americathecountryball]

Did anybody else notice he mouthed “I’m sorry”? 1:23

[panda-tcdt]

Being 17 with older parents than every one around me, this really hit and i was not expecting to cry multiple times throughout the video.

[digiholic]

The "The Tree was happy... but not really" line being on _that_ particular interaction has a simple explanation that I didn't see anyone bring up -- The Tree is not happy, because the boy is leaving. The Tree helps The Boy leave because it still wants to help, but wishes The Boy wouldn't leave.

[danielcolman]

I love how everyone just agrees that Shel Silverstein's face on the back scared them as a kid

[amaikarai]

The Giving Tree was my ALL TIME FAVORITE book as a child. I wanted my mom to read it for me all the time, and I’d sit in my room and read it on my own. Sadly, I grew up to be the tree.
Reading this book now as a 25 year old, it’s sad in a beautiful way. This book shows reality as it is, but in a way that’s palatable to children. It’s not meant to have a happy ending, or an “in your face” lesson, such as the tree smartening up. The lesson is the ending itself. The result of someone who gives too much, and someone else who never gives back. Neither of them are truly happy, but somehow the tree has convinced herself that she is, because she’s finally reunited with this boy who gave her happiness once many years ago.

[LoadedAlloy]

This was one of my FAVORITE stories as a child and it remains a message I will assuredly pass down to my children should I have any. It's sad seeing people be unable to internalize stories that aren't overtly joyous.

[trickster]

Referring to the video by Doctor Ramani, I don't really get the idea that writing a story about an abusive relationship necessarily means that you're fucked in the head or something

[seabass]

As a child, when i read the book, i felt a secondhand guilt on behalf of the boy. I always felt like that emotion was the goal of the story. Getting children to reflect on their relationships to other people.

[legendarysoil]

I’m actually shocked that The Giving Tree is interpreted as “wrong” when even as a kid I was able to recognize the actual messages behind the book

[CuriusGorg]

The point of the book is that it *is* a children’s book. The sentences themselves are easy to understand, yet the idea is so complex. I remember being read this in kindergarten and instantly being overwhelmed with curiosity. The point is not to tell a healthy tale, or glorify the relationship within the book, it’s meant to make kids think. In the same way an english major might dissect the complex relationships of characters in a book, the kids are meant to study the complexity within this book. The tree is constantly being taken from, but is always happy… but not really. Because the punchline in the book is not “and the tree was happy” the punchline is that she’s constantly asking the boy to play. Deep down that’s all she wants. He’s constantly referred to as a “boy” despite growing up, because we are meant to be the tree, we are meant to always see him as a child and ask him to play. It’s a story of 2 extremes: a taker and a giver, and how in the end, they both end up in the same place in the same state. All because the boy wouldn’t play.

The boy is a boy at heart. The statement “I’m too old to play” is already heartbreaking enough because, as the tree we don’t see him as anything more than “a boy”. The tree conforms to the new revelation and instead offers to help the boy. The boy takes and the tree is happy, because she is helping the boy. The catch is everything she offers for play is (or would have been) permanent: her shade, apples, and leaves. They can always grow back. The boy however cannot grow back, he can only grow up, and as he matures he feels as if he cannot play. What the tree offers to help cannot grow back: her branches and trunk. And when the boy leaves, she is not really happy. The story is meant to highlight impermanence. The boy had to have grown up, but the tree seems to stay the same age. It’s the boy’s aging that speeds up the tree’s dismembering.

The tree only wants the boy to be happy. Playing brings him joy. Money allows him to buy things. A house allows him to be safe and raise a family. A boat allows him to journey. And her stump allows him to sit. And in the end they are both the same. They are so perfectly in sync that by the end of the book, the only think she had to offer is the only thing he needs, all because the boy wouldn’t play.

[RelativelyBest]

The tree is happy "but not really" because the boy is leaving. She's happy because she was able to help him again but sad because he won't be around anymore.

[Davaroni]

I think Solar Sands’ mother caught on to an extent. The book is about unconditional love. Unconditional love doesn’t always appear fair from the outside, It’s not transactional. It can wear one down, and even lead to sadness, but it won’t fade even in the midst of that. That’s why it’s unconditional, and beautifully tragic.

[campbellsmith]

I was reading Speaker for the Dead, the second book in the Ender's Game series, and I was so struck by a sudden reminder of this book. It occurred when Human, an alien of a species that sacrifice their men (they turn into trees) whenever they have done them a great service (long story lol). He asks Ender to be the one to send him on, and when Ender expresses his desire for Human to live, he simply says: "'Come and sit in my shade. . . and see the sunlight through my leaves, and rest your back against my trunk'". The sudden rush of emotions I got when reading that line... I didn't think I was going to cry over that book, no matter how moving the story, but the image of my mother crying over this book, something I thought her over-dramatic for as a child, suddenly made my way into my head, a reminder of my own Giving Tree. She has always loved us with her entire heart, and would do/has done whatever she could to make our lives as good as they can be. It just makes me kind of sad that, even at the young age we were whenever she first read the Giving Tree, she had already resigned herself to this eventual emptiness. I am trying to pour back into her, because no matter how much she wants to give, the thought of seeing her old and empty is a heartbreaking image. Nonetheless, she is still alive today, and I can visit her and bask in her love for me, and hopefully bask her in my love for her, but one day, she will be gone, and all that will be left is the visage of her, kept in my memories like sunlight through shade.