I saw this going around Facebook a few days ago.

“‘The tree who set healthy boundaries.’ A parody alternate ending of Shel Silverstein’s The Giving Tree, part of the ‘Topher Fixed It’ series for young people.”

https://www.topherpayne.com/giving-tree

The audacity.

What frustrates me are the reactions to this edit. People were saying, “I didn’t know I needed this,” “Thank you, I always had a problem with the original,” and “Oh, this is so much better!”

But the original story implied this message. The stump at the end is unsettling. It disturbed Topher enough that he felt it his duty to make this edit. But in doing so, he missed the point. It’s supposed to make you uncomfortable, so you think, “She shouldn’t have given him everything. She should have set boundaries,” without Silverstein stating this directly.

That’s what poetry and metaphors are for: to paint a picture and make you think. Telling, as this edit does, becomes less of a story and more, “Sit down, shut up, and let me tell you what’s right.” Fiction and poetry are not the avenues to do this so overtly. Nonfiction is. Even then, it could be handled better than spelling everything out.

[This is the problem with poetry these days. It’s all about feelings and “profound” statements with very few images or metaphors for the reader / listener to enjoy and ponder. These works denigrate the long history of poetry, and in my opinion should be labeled under a new genre, rather than as poems. I propose “confessionals.”

It’s indicative of our times that anyone with a keyboard can call themselves a professional writer, without going through the education to understand what the purpose of the craft is. And as long as we have platforms like this, that will never change. It’s so much harder to sift through the trash, especially when trash is front and center by creators who were popular before they started writing. Common folk see what’s popular and emulate that, rather than actual good, literary work, and here we are with the contemporary poetry scene.]

Rant aside, I do not think this is trash per se. I do appreciate what he was trying to do here, but critical thinking through analysis is part of literature. Learning this ability starts in childhood. Sadly, people now seem to abandon it when they leave school. Edits like this remove the need to retain it. Without critical thinking, we become victims to herd mentality, which is dangerous. Herd mentality is how dictators come to power.

Saralyn, you’re overreacting. This is just a child’s story that somebody expanded and expounded. First world countries aren’t going to become dictatorships, you conspiracy nut.

Maybe you’re right. But every big tree starts with a small seed.

Thank you for coming to my TED Talk.

Post-script: Topher Payne really should know better. He has won literary and playwriting awards. Perhaps this series is a grasp for extra attention. If it is, I suppose he’s achieved his goal. But if he sincerely thought these books needed fixing in this way, he has shown that even humanities degrees should have continuing education requirements. Because he’s forgotten a thing or two.

But then, his accolades are mainly in theater. Dialogue-driven experience does not lend itself to poetic expression. He should stay in his field.