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Riffing off a theme developed over the past several comments of late, I submit this book as one of the best treatments of altruism I’ve read to date, mostly because its handled with such simplicity and honesty.

But there’s more to this book than simply a message about “generosity.”

For many years, whenever I read this story, I focused on the tree and how nice it was to be so thoughtful and, well… giving. This last time around, I was struck by the contrast of the tree who values “giving and relationships” as the path of happiness and the boy who seems to simply be caught up with “having stuff and doing stuff.”

Silverstein could have made this a preachy book where the tree wins and the boy loses (we never once even get the slightest hint that the tree judges the boy’s actions as selfish because the tree genuinely loves to give–a dynamic that some might consider “co-dependency” but I’m not buying it…). Instead, he takes a more honest stance in linking happiness with our ability to live inter-dependently, a pre-requisite for genuine relationship.

I find it especially interesting that we never really get a solid sense of what makes the boy genuinely happy–its only “I want…” We hear the tree offer its branches and fruit and lumber for the boy’s “happiness” but this is always from the tree’s perspective. The boy only says “I want, I want, I want.” It strikes me that the boy’s quest isn’t really driven by a desire for happiness but simply by DESIRE… a classic depiction of mankind acting by “urge” and “impulse” vs. acting by “principles” and “values.” I know the older I get the more I relate with the heavy pull of unchecked “desire” and the temptation to allow myself to simply live by sheer stimulus. Looking for meaning requires slowing down which seems to get harder and harder to do. Books like this remind me of how important that effort is.

I also love how Silverstein draws the correlation between doing good and living small (and happiness): both the boy and the tree continue to live according to their individual values (the tree for giving; the boy for taking) but neither have the opportunity for sustained happiness until the boy’s needs and desires simplify down to “having and doing less.” I think more people would, like the tree, pursue “doing good for others” if our culture, as a whole, could learn to be content with “having and doing less.”

Jason