The Giving Tree is an American children’s picture book written and illustrated by Shel Silverstein. First published in 1964 by Harper & Row, it has become one of Silverstein’s best-known titles, and has been translated into numerous languages.
Silverstein had difficulty finding a publisher for The Giving Tree. An editor at Simon & Schuster rejected the book’s manuscript because he felt that it was “too sad” for children and “too simple” for adults. Tomi Ungerer encouraged Silverstein to approach Ursula Nordstrom, who was a publisher with Harper & Row.
An editor with Harper & Row stated that Silverstein had made the original illustrations “scratchy” like his cartoons for Playboy, but that he later reworked the art in a “more pared-down and much sweeter style.” The final black-and-white drawings have been described as “unadorned… visual minimalism.” Harper & Row published a small first edition of the book, consisting of only 5,000–7,500 copies, in 1964.
Picture Credit : Google
