"The Giving Tree" Is Forty Years Old!

A friend and I went to a bookstore on Saturday and, as usual, I picked up one of my favorite free book review publications. Of course, in the midst of all those thousands of books in the bookstore, I forgot to look at it.
On Sunday, which was Mother's Day, I took time to prop up my feet on the coffee table, drink my glass of iced tea, and enjoy browsing through the book reviews. But I got a mild shock when I read about one particular book!
This year is the 40th anniversary of Shel Silverstein's classic story "The Giving Tree."
I sat on my couch and remembered the first time I'd ever read that book. I'd bought it to read to the youngest of my children, thinking since it was about a little boy, it would appeal to him. Little did I know how it would dig itself deep into my heart as a mother.
The story is a tale about the relationship between a young boy and a tree in a forest. They become best friends, and the tree always provides the boy with what he wants: vines to swing from, shade to sit under, apples to eat, etc. In the ultimate act of self-sacrifice, the tree lets the boy cut her down so he can build a boat. Then the boy leaves the tree, now a stump. Many years later, when he is an old man, he returns and the tree says it has nothing left to give him. But the boy replies that he only needs a quiet place to sit and rest as he awaits the end of his life. And the tree happily obliges, because once again she has the boy with her and she has something left to give him. It is a story about giving and giving, but happily.
Forty years old! It's hard to believe that story is THAT old! But when I think about it, it is really a timeless story.
If you haven't read The Giving Tree, you've missed one of the loveliest books ever written.
And if you don't know who Shel Silverstein was, he was an American poet, songwriter, musician, composer, cartoonist, screenwriter, and author of children's books. He died in 1999 at the age of 68. He also wrote The Missing Piece, A Light in the Attic, Where the Sidewalk Ends, Falling Up, and many more stories.
As for music (and this surprised me), he wrote the music and lyrics for A Boy Named Sue that was performed by Johnny Cash, and One's on the Way, a hit for Loretta Lynn. He was posthumously inducted into the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame in 2002.