The Giving Tree

http://blogs.slj.com/afuse8production/2012/05/18/top-100-picture-books-85-the-giving-tree-by-shel-silverstein/#_

https://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/05/books/review/the-giving-tree-tender-story-of-unconditional-love-or-disturbing-tale-of-selfishness.html

These reviews of the giving tree highlight the contrasting opinions readers have of The Giving tree. I want to use these to highlight the problems with using ambiguity within children's books. The book is still one of the best selling children's books of all time but has polarised opinion of the meaning behind its narrative. Leaving the meaning so open means that the narrative can be seen in a number of ways, in the case of this book the relationship between the characters has been seen as selfless love from parent to child and also as an abusive relationship. One of the other books I have looked at, The Heart and the Bottle also uses ambiguity but only is smaller elements of the story. It manages to keep the overall meaning clear.