“Giving Lessons” Book Review

Hopewell Valley Student Podcasting Network 

Show Name: Beyond a Bedtime Story

Episode Title: “Giving Lessons” Book Review

Episode #5

You are listening to Beyond a Bedtime Story the podcast with your host Emily.

In this episode of Beyond a Bedtime Story the Podcast I will provide follow-up reading prompts for “The Giving Tree”.

Segment 1: The Value of Sad Stories 

Hi, Welcome back! I’m your host Emily, and you’re listening to Beyond a Bedtime Story: A Parent’s Guide to Children’s Reading! In this episode we will be tackling a book that carries emotional weight, and it’s one that you’re almost certainly familiar with and one that I read as a child. And while I remembered my love for it, when I reread the book I was reminded of, and rather shocked at its candid melancholy. The book is “The Giving Tree” by Shel Silverstein and, in case you are unfamiliar, it follows the friendship of a tree and a boy, but as the boy grows older, he becomes absent and only visits the tree to request things from her, such as apples and branches, until, by the end, the tree is reduced to a stump on which the boy finally sits.  

• Article: The Third Mr. Silverstein (Richard R. Lingeman; April 30, 1978) 
• “Happy endings, magic solutions in children's books, he says; “create an alienation” in the child who reads them. “The child asks why don't I have this happiness thing you're telling me about, and comes to think when his joy stops that he has failed, that it won't come back.” By the same token, creating mythic heroes “20 feet tall” places an impossible burden on the child, who feels he can never live up to the image.”

Tangent: my childhood & never liking happy endings

• relate to it being ok for your child to face sadness (I was obsessed with watching the news as a child and was drawn to sad stories because I liked facing my feelings) 
• But not all children do (joke about "friend" who wasn't allowed to watch the news as a child because it made him too sad) 
• Obviously very different, each child has a different level of tolerance for facing emotional stories, and as a parent you know best what they can handle, but everyone can benefit from being exposed to the not-so-perfect realities of life and can be taught how to deal with sad situations 
•  this text provides a healthy amount of sadness to address, at least Silverstein would think so, and I happen to agree (when you use the right prompts and lessons to teach your child) 
• Article: We Need to Talk About ‘The Giving Tree’ (By Adam...