When I was nine, I won a local competition to caption a billboard. As thrilled as I was to see my words printed in the clouds, I also felt completely mortified. The validation of having words I'd written deemed worthy of publication was countered by an intense fear of judgment that accompanies public consumption. The truth is that I hesitated to re-publish those words here today, for fear of unknown readers judging nine-year-old me. As a writer, I am keenly aware that putting my words out into the world exposes me - my thoughts, my truths, my biases, and my flaws. It is a disproportionate balance of giving and taking between writer and reader.
To this day, I am equally abashed that two of my classmates won the higher honor of having their artwork showcased on that billboard. Twenty feet up in the air, magnified fifty-fold over the city's main highway, was a colorful drawing of a small boy absorbed in a giant storybook as he dreamily soars through the sky, transported by dragons and castles, or whatever other fantasies were there on the page. My caption read:
Anywhere you want to be...reading is a fantasy.
I suppose the idea of being transported to another time and place has taken on new meaning since I became a parent two years ago. My son and I have a nighttime routine of reading bedtime stories that has made time travel and teleportation commonplace, but not for the reason you may think. As often as I've watched my son gleefully sail off to meet pirates, cowboys, aliens, and robots - fully experiencing each tale with all the exhilaration of an imaginative two-year-old - I've been pulled wistfully into my own childhood, re-savoring familiar thoughts and feelings for a fleeting, delicious, nostalgic moment. There is a particular thrill in stumbling across a vaguely familiar book cover and rediscovering faded memories of illustrations and pages long forgotten.
A few months ago, my son discovered a stash of special books that I keep high up on a shelf out of his reach. This shelf is reserved for books that are collector's items, gifts, paperbacks with flimsy pages that easily tear, and so on. One of them is shrouded in a lime-green book jacket depicting a little boy in red overalls. He is standing with his arms outstretched to catch an apple falling from a tree. Flip the book over to find the most frightening photo of a children's author that I've ever seen - one of the reasons I'd shelved it for fear of inducing nightmares. Had I not given it away within the title of this article, I wonder how easily you'd have guessed it. Of course, I’m referring to The Giving Tree by Shel Silverstein.
While still pregnant, I was gifted a copy of the book by a friend, who wrote the following inscription, “May you always know the gift of giving and the beauty of love”. I vaguely remembered the gist of the story, and the inscription felt sentimentally reassuring – precisely the way I remembered the book. It was a story about a tree’s love for a little boy, unwavering and unconditional at every age and stage of the boy's life. When I plucked the book off the shelf, I eagerly began reading aloud its opening lines. I hoped that my toddler would treasure this story as much as I did, and I waited for that feeling of joyful childhood nostalgia to wash over me.
It did at first. But like many who revisit the story through the lens of adulthood, those feelings became intermingled with something more melancholic as the story went on. After reading the final verse, I paused to watch my child's reaction. He seemed contemplative, as much as a toddler could be. I wondered where he had been transported. I wondered where I had been transported.
The Giving Tree took root. I could feel the text tickling the margins of my mind for several days after that fresh read. A quick internet search validated my ruminations. There was a lot to unpack; I plunged into a tidal wave of articles and essays about The Giving Tree, which countless others have already examined from an analytic standpoint to a moral standpoint, and all of the personal and emotional perspectives in between. Some people expressed feeling deeply moved by a loving portrait of a parent and child, whereas others found spiritual symbolism in the narrative. The numerous positive reactions to the tree's endearing and generous relationship with the boy were matched by equally impassioned detractors who found their lopsided interactions morally disturbing and even anti-feminist. It was banned from a Colorado public library in 1988 for sexism. Some argued that the book is mistitled - that it isn't about a giving tree at all; it's really about The Taking Boy whose selfishness depletes everything around him. Even Mr. Silverstein, the person, wasn't off limits from critics. They cited his reputation as a womanizer to suggest that his unsavory moral defects crept their way into this cautionary tale of an unscrupulous taker.
I’ve tried to cleanse my mental palette of these revelations - to travel back to how I felt as a little girl. Obviously, my takeaway back then was positive and uplifting. But like so many other children, I uniquely adored the works of Shel Silverstein. Perhaps there was a reason. Did I suspect there was something profound in the telling of this simple story? Did I intuit its subtle complexity and meaning? Did the flawed interactions feel implicitly human? Maybe; maybe not. I can't see a clear answer through blurry recollections. I suppose that when I read the story as a child, I saw myself as the little boy who continuously takes - and despite having little to offer in return, is still worthy of love. As an adult, I now relate as a mother whose sacrifices will never be fully understood nor recounted. As a woman, I am frustrated by the tree's willful self-deprivation. As someone who has experienced rejection in many forms, I am pained by the tree's repeated neglect and abandonment. The only clarity gained is that I am as embedded within the story as the Giving Tree itself.
Many years ago, my winning caption had billed reading as a fantastical escape from reality. It's true that good stories ensnare the reader's attention for a time, creating pleasurable but temporary diversions. Great stories, however, seem to percolate the depths of our consciousness, taking root and blooming over time to reveal that our brains are forever altered. This is the infinite power of storytelling. As a reader, I sometimes forget to honor that power with conscious thought, careful mental calibration, and discourse. This is the responsibility of the reader - to read not just pleasurably or academically but also introspectively.
Perhaps The Giving Tree is not the story of a giving tree at all. Nor is it the story of a self-serving boy, an insight into the author's psyche, or a parable of some greater purpose. To the readers who felt so compelled to respond to Mr. Silverstein's story through critiques and dissertations of your own, perhaps it is not his story that compelled you. Therein lies the solution to an otherwise imbalanced equation between writer and reader. This is a comforting notion to me as the thrill of seeing my words printed in the cloud is matched by my complete mortification. I write to self-reflect, to organize my thoughts, to convey feelings or impressions, to connect with other people, to persuade or influence, to create art from words. I hope to tell great stories, the kind that sows seeds of vulnerability and truth. Yet I write knowing that my reader will convolute and contribute new meaning to every letter that I type. I am no Shel Silverstein, but I hope our travels together spark an introspective light that is worthy of my journey and yours.