Reply to "The Giving Tree" book -- what am I supposed to make of this?

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Reply to ""The Giving Tree" book -- what am I supposed to make of this?"

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]OP, he will tire of it after a while, but do try to retire it as soon as possible.  We absorb a lot of things unconsciously between the ages of 0-5 -- not all of them healthy.  He's probably too young to get anything more than the broad strokes now, but I would not keep in his library.

I had a similar reaction to The Rainbow Fish.  At first glance, it seemed like it was a book about sharing.  While reading it, I realized that it had a number of unfortunate messages:   1) it's not possible to be different/special and still humble and nice, and 2) the best way to make friends is buy them with presents and be just like them.  I think we need to be very careful about how we talk about difference with children.

Sharing, of course, is great.  However, there are many other books on sharing that are much better than The Rainbow Fish.   [/quote]

See, to me[u] Rainbow Fish[/u] is just creepy.  He's giving away his body parts.

But [u]the Giving Tree[/u] is a fantastic conversation starter book, maybe not for a 3 year old, but for a 7 or 8 year old it's great.  You just have to understand that neither the boy nor the tree is the hero in the story.  It's not saying "be like the tree" or "be like the boy".  It's more of a warning than a celebration of their relationship.

And I love [u]Love you Forever[/u], because I think it totally captures all the intensity and weirdness of the preschooler-parent relationship.  When he was 4 my kid asked me, totally seriously, if I could be his college roommate when he grew up. And when he was 4, I'd sneak into his room to watch him sleep and think "don't grow another day older", and the book captured that feeling perfectly, even though I never planned on literally sneaking in my adult child's window.

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