Through their friendship, Dalia learns how her family acquired their home and how Bashir unfairly lost his when Israel commandeered it and forced the community he lived in to flee. She is sympathetic, but realizes that there is nothing she can do about it. She cannot return the home to him, she cannot even sell it to him. It is a brutal mark on Israel’s history, but the Arabs wanted to drive them out, and the newly formed Israel saw no other way to guarantee its survival other than to kill or be killed. Israelis chose survival as cruel as its implementation required.

As a heartbroken Kostas ineffectually circles his quiet teenager, Aunt Meryem arrives with two suitcases emblazoned with pictures of Marilyn Monroe and as many recipes as aphorisms, plaiting and replaiting her hair and never knowing when to mind her business. Every culture has an auntie like her. “‘Signs of the Apocalypse,’ mutters Meryem, turning off the TV. ‘It’s climate change,’ says Ada, without lifting her gaze from her phone.” She is a wonderful counterpoint to Ada’s teenage superiority, and the women eventually come to mirror each other in their vulnerability at a time of change. “‘I blame the menopause,’ says Meryem. ‘I was always tidy and organised … I don’t want to clean up any more.’” a b Bird, Elizabeth (May 18, 2012). "Top 100 Picture Books #85: The Giving Tree by Shel Silverstein". School Library Journal "A Fuse #8 Production" blog . Retrieved May 18, 2013. Tree Climb Simulation: Set up a pretend Faraway Tree in the classroom or hall using PE equipment like benches. Allow the children to take turns pretending to climb and share what magical land they would like to visit. In Guardians of the Galaxy, when Star-Lord first meets the tree-like alien Groot, he refers to him as "Giving Tree". National Education Association. "Kids' Top 100 Books". Archived from the original on February 1, 2013 . Retrieved May 18, 2013.

In his childhood, the boy enjoys playing with the tree, climbing her trunk, swinging from her branches, carving "Me + T (Tree)" into the bark, and eating her apples. However, as the boy grows older, he spends less time with the tree and tends to visit her only when he wants material items at various stages of his life, or not coming to the tree alone (such as bringing a lady friend to the tree and carving "Me +Y.L." (her initials, often assumed to be an acronym for "young love") into the tree). In an effort to make the boy happy at each of these stages, the tree gives him parts of herself, which he can transform into material items, such as money from her apples when the boy is a teenager, a house from her branches when the boy is a young man, and a boat from her trunk when the boy is a middle-aged man. With every stage of giving, "the Tree was happy". I have just finished this book, and found it to be one of the most complelling books I have ever read.

Initially, the chapters swap from one family to the other, chapter by chapter (similar to Dan Ephron’s Killing a King), until the two families meet at which point their narrative becomes intertwined. With that narrative shift, the book also moves away from offering very personal stories about individuals’ experiences to attempting to capture the broader and very convoluted struggle of Arabs and Jews in Israel.Radeva, Milena (2012). "16: The Giving Tree, Women, and the Great Society". In Costello, Peter R (ed.). Philosophy in Children's Literature. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books. pp. 267–283. ISBN 9780739168233. Solomon spoke to some 300 families in the course of researching the book, a rebuke to everything shoddy and dashed off in the culture, and the density of his empirical evidence decimates casual assumption. What unites most of his interviewees is a political sense of injustice in the way they are perceived by the mainstream. "Fixing is the illness model," writes Solomon. "Acceptance is the identity model." Established in 1974, DK publishes a range of titles in genres including travel (including Eyewitness Travel Guides), arts and crafts, business, history, cooking, gaming, gardening, health and fitness, natural history, parenting, science and reference. They also publish books for children, toddlers and babies, covering such topics as history, the human body, animals and activities, as well as licensed properties such as LEGO, Disney and DeLiSo, licensor of the toy Sophie la Girafe. DK has offices in New York, London, Munich, New Delhi, Toronto and Melbourne.