The Giving Tree

"It’s a bestseller, a massive book in America, which is where I came across it. Shel Silverstein is a household name there. I was drawn to it as an illustrator, mainly for its apparent simplicity, but in fact, it is actually a complex book and very hard to decode. Reading it is a bit like reading poetry. You might not completely understand the definitive meaning, but it works—there’s something there and you want to know more. It’s intriguing. It starts “Once there was a tree”—and the tree character is introduced, and then a little boy comes and climbs the tree and gathers leaves. The boy eats apples from the tree, he sleeps in its shade, and he loves the tree. As he grows up, he moves away and the tree is left more and more alone. The boy becomes a young man and finds that he needs things like money—he wants all sorts of things! The tree gives apples for the boy to sell. Then the boy wants a house and the tree provides the wood. The tree gives up itself so that the boy can have all the things he wants. At the very end, the boy is an old man, and the tree is left just as a stump. It’s a book full of questions, but whether there are any answers there or not is another thing. I find it very powerful."