I get why people think this book has a depressing nature because the boy always takes then leaves the tree lonely but the last time he comes he stays with the tree and they both die of old age.

I love shel silverstiens books they always make great discussions,like for the giving tree,we discussed about the underminig of parental authority when my mom thought of a good point,What if he didnt have parents,the tree was his friend helping him in alway she could...

When i was reading about how the tree gave him apples i thought about a joke, An apple a day keeps the dentist away.

Its true that the boy was selfish because he came to the tree just to ask for things but he was busy he was trying to make a living.

Read this book with my family and we started discussing why it should be banned at first we thought "its because the boy is selfish and always takes from the tree" but then we thought some more and said "what is a boy supposed to do for a tree".