Books on the Boat: The Giving Tree by Shel Silverstein

On apples, branching out, and the gifts we give instead of things

For our final January 2026 Boat Book, we return to The Giving Tree by Shel Silverstein. As the mother of grown children, I now find myself reading from the tree’s point of view, in addition to the child’s.

Quiet morning at the Littlejohn Island dock, the sun muted by clouds and ice forming on the channel: a place to pause and notice what remains when the leaves and ‘things’ fall away.

Late January, Looking Up at the Branches

By the end of January in Maine, the trees stand in their most honest form. No leaves to soften the lines, just trunks and branches against a washed-out sky. You can see clearly what has broken off in past storms, what held firm, and where new growth might come when the light returns.

It feels like the right moment to pull The Giving Tree off the shelf.

For years, I knew it as many of us did: a simple story about a boy and a tree, one always asking, one always giving. As a child, I felt mostly like the boy, accepting the apples without thinking much about where they came from.

Now I read it as a mother of grown children, a recent grandmother, and as a daughter with a mother who is gradually letting go of her own belongings. I am still the child in some ways. I am also, unmistakably, the tree.

Once there was a tree… and she loved a little boy.

—Shel Silverstein, The Giving Tree

From Apples to Bare Branches

The boy in The Giving Tree moves through stages: swinging from branches, selling apples, building a house, and sailing away. Each time he comes back, he asks the tree for something, and the tree gives what it can—leaves, apples, branches, trunk—until all that remains is a stump and a place to sit.

There were years when I moved through my own “apple seasons” with my children, meeting needs that were mostly tangible. From lunchboxes and winter boots to birthday presents that could be wrapped and tucked into gift bags.

Now our family has entered a different chapter.

One of our grown daughters is married to an Army man. Their household stays nimble so they can respond to orders and move when needed. Another has just packed up her apartment and departed with her dog and her new husband, off to spend a year as digital nomads, fitting their life in a small number of bags packed in their car.

Tree of St. Sebastian Silverpoint by Dale O. Roberts

All of this is exciting and it changes how we give. This year, Christmas and the cluster of post-holiday birthdays could not be “thing” oriented in the way they once were. A bookshelf or a bulky kitchen gadget makes little sense when your next address is unknown.

At the same time, my mother has been thoughtfully giving away many of her own things, paring down to what is essential. I see her looking at an object and asking: Do I still need this? Who might enjoy it next? In those moments I recognize her as the tree, and myself as the boy, now the older man, sitting quietly nearby, wanting less and noticing more.

I am both: the child who once needed apples and boards, and the woman who has spent years offering what she could, branch by branch.

Come, Boy, come and climb up my trunk and swing from my branches and eat apples and play in my shade and be happy.

—Shel Silverstein, The Giving Tree

Presence as Present

Last weekend, we gathered to celebrate the birthday of my digital nomad daughter. There were no towering piles of presents. Instead, we had a meal together and cake at the end, the way we always have.

The “presents” that day were mostly our presence. My husband, some of our grown children and their spouses, and baby passed between laps. Stories passed back and forth. Future plans were sketched in pencil. No one could quite say where everyone would be living a year from now, but everyone could say, with certainty, that they were glad to be here, today.

This, too, felt like The Giving Tree, but quieter. The tree at the end of the book no longer has apples or branches or a long trunk. What it offers is a place to rest. An old friend. A familiar spot where the boy, now an older man, can simply sit.

As my own children carry fewer things and more experiences, the nature of my giving has changed. There are fewer wrapped boxes and more plane tickets, more long phone calls, more texts that say, “We can talk later if you want,” and more dinners squeezed into brief windows when everyone is in the same zip code.

I do have a copy of The Giving Tree set aside for the daughter who is leaving. It is waiting at home for her to reclaim when she circles back. For now, it feels right that her main gifts are less about objects and more about time and support, the invisible offerings that do not take up space in a suitcase.

And the boy loved the tree…And the tree was happy.

—Shel Silverstein, The Giving Tree

Dancing Trees – MacWorth Island by

Brian Emerson

Sitting with the Tree

As with many classic children’s books, The Giving Tree has invited debate over the years. Is this a story about unconditional love? About unhealthy self-sacrifice? About the human tendency to take more than is wise?

I am less interested in sorting it into a single answer than in noticing what it stirs in me now.

When I read it these days, I think about:

• How relationships change as we move through seasons of need, abundance, and limitation.

• How our parents’ gifts evolve from the material, rides, meals, safety, to the less visible, wisdom, perspective, and the offer of a place to rest.

• How we, in turn, shift from being largely on the receiving end to learning how to give in ways that do not erase us.

My mother’s gentle letting-go of her possessions, my own transition from buying toys to booking flights, and my children’s moves toward lighter, more portable lives, all of this feels held inside that small green book.

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Part of walking the bountiful path is the willingness to revisit the stories we grew up with and gently rewrite our relationship to them. I can still be grateful for the comfort that The Giving Tree offered me as a child, while also imagining a different version of the story that better reflects what I now know about reciprocity, boundaries, and shared growth.

In the version I sometimes picture, the tree still loves the child and the child still loves the tree, but their relationship changes as they grow. The tree gives apples and shade and a place to climb. The child brings water in dry seasons, plants seeds nearby, and clears debris from the roots. When the older child asks for more, the tree does not always give away pieces of itself. Together they find other ways. They gather fallen branches rather than cutting off living ones. The boy plants a small grove so that there will be more shade and fruit for whomever comes next. As they grow older, the tree still has leaves, the person has stories, and they meet not only in times of need, but also in simple companionship.

“I don’t need very much now,” said the boy…

“Well,” said the tree…

“Come, Boy, sit down. Sit down and rest.”

—Shel Silverstein, The Giving Tree

I also find myself reaching for images from the Maine woods. There, a different kind of giving story plays out quietly under our feet. A birch seedling sometimes sprouts on a fallen log that is slowly breaking down and returning to the soil, using the fallen tree as a “nurse.” The old trunk holds water and nutrients so the young birch can take root. Over time the nurse log disappears and the birch stands on what look like stilts, its roots wrapped around the space where that first support once lay. Later, when the birch itself falls, it begins to break down and becomes part of the soil for whatever comes next. No one tree is only the giver or only the receiver. The roles keep shifting as the forest changes.

These imagined stories do not replace Silverstein’s book. They sit beside it and change how I read it. They remind me that we are allowed to keep growing past the first story we were told, and that love can be generous without requiring one being to disappear in the process.

I also think about what the tree does not give. It does not give advice. It offers what it has, then waits. There is something in that stance I am still learning. As my children move into their own chapters, I find myself practicing a kind of quiet availability: here when needed, out of the way when not. Rooted, but not clinging.

Untitled (Field of Trees) by Jane Dahmen

Why The Giving Tree Belongs on the Boat

For this final January Books on the Boat, The Giving Tree feels like the right companion.

On a boat, you cannot carry everything. Space is limited. You choose carefully. Food, water, charts, warm clothing, a small stack of books. The most important cargo is often the people on board and the time you share in close quarters.

Families are not so different. Over time, the “stuff” falls away, or is given away. What remains, the part that matters most, is the web of presence that connects us: the way we show up for each other, the phone calls, the inside jokes, the history only a handful of people share.

As we move from January into the heart of winter, I think of myself as both the boy and the tree, and also as the person sitting quietly on a familiar stump, grateful for whoever chooses to sit beside me for a while.

And when he was tired he would sleep in her shade.

Your Turn

For this week’s Books on the Boat, I would love to hear from you:

• Has your understanding of The Giving Tree or another childhood book shifted as your own life has changed?

• If you were to imagine a “bountiful path” version of that story, what might be different? Would there be more mutual giving, more rest, more room for everyone to grow?

• Are there trees, plants, or places in nature that have helped you think differently about how we give and receive in our families or communities?

If you would like companionship with your winter reading, and with your evolving story, you are warmly invited to join the Bountiful Path virtual book circle on February 3 (next week!). Each person will bring a book of their own choosing, and together we will explore how the stories we carry may also be gently rewritten. For those who may find it useful, we have created a participant sharing guide.

🌟Thank you for reading, and for walking this bountiful path with me,
Lisa

The Bountiful Path: Offering seasonal practices for real connection, rooted in medicine, leadership, and art.