By Shel Silverstein
A tree loves a boy his whole life and gives him everything she has, one piece at a time. Families read it very differently, and reread it for years.
A tree loves a little boy. When he's small he climbs her, swings from her branches, eats her apples, and sleeps in her shade, and she's happy. Then he grows up and comes around less, and when he does come back he needs something. He wants money, so she gives him her apples to sell. He wants a house, so she gives him her branches. He wants a boat to sail away, so she gives him her trunk. Each time, the book says she's happy. At the end he's an old man and there's nothing left of her but a stump, and she offers him the last thing she has, a place to sit down and rest.
To a four-year-old this is a tree who loves a boy, plain and sweet, with a quiet ending. The reason it stays on the shelf for decades is that it keeps changing on you. Read it again at ten, or at thirty, and it's suddenly about mothers, about giving until there's nothing left, about whether the tree's happiness is something to admire or something that breaks your heart. It's very short and it looks gentle, and there's a lot going on underneath. That's what makes people want to talk about it after, and it's why the same family comes back to it again and again.