Course Activity 5

The Giving Tree by Shel Silverstein

Shel Silverstein is an outstanding children’s author. Silverstein’s first book was Lafcadio, the Lion Who Shot Back, written in 1963. One year later he wrote The Giving Tree, which he had a difficult time publishing. Publishers agreed that it was too sad. Silverstein remarked that life “has pretty sad endings.” Shel was born in Chicago in 1930. He not only wrote books, but also songs for famous singers such as “A Boy Named Sue” for Johnny Cash. In 1984, he won a Grammy for Where the Sidewalk Ends. He was also a playwright and in 1981 wrote The Lady or the Tiger. In 1988 he co-wrote a film with David Mamet, Things Change. Silverstein died in 1999, leaving behind quite a legacy of writing to remember him by. In 2011 a new collection of his poetry was published as Everything On it and left us with even more text and drawings by the awe-inspiring author. (www.shelsilverstein.com)

The Giving Tree is the book I have chosen to focus on with my reading student, Judah. I asked Judah if she had read this book before and she has not. Next week, (weather permitting) I will give Judah this book to explore. I chose this book because of the amazing life lesson within its pages. Silverstein’s amazing ability to relate adult themes in children’s literature is an inspiration. In The Giving Tree, Shel portrays the self-serving nature of a little boy who takes advantage of his supposed-best-friend, the tree. The tree’s unconditional love for the boy is apparent from the beginning of the book until the end. I am hoping that this theme will be easy for Judah to pick up on and that she will be able to express her thoughts to me for the comprehension assignment that I hope is coming next.

This book is a picture and text book. I believe that the pictures go great with the text. They help to further enforce the ideas behind the words. The characters are multi-dimensional. The language is very rhythmic with varied sentence structure. I believe the reading level is probably appropriate, in that Judah will be able to understand what she is reading and be able to read the book in one session. I hope that the text is simple and brief enough that she can easily pick up on the themes which I certainly believe reflect real-life emotions and make connections to the world. The book varies its text by sometimes putting only half a sentence on a page to putting entire paragraphs on other pages.

As for multicultural literature, I am not sure that this book shows diversity between different cultures, but I undoubtedly believe that it is a book that could be easily adaptable to any culture. Love is universal. The Tree is a female character and the boy, obviously male, but their parts are not equal. This book shows that the male character is the taker and the female character, the giver. The book does not really portray multiple cultures realistically either.  So, I would have to say that as far as the criteria in the multicultural rubric go this book does not really hit high marks. Maybe my opinion is too narrow. I would love to hear the thoughts of my classmates who may have read this text.