The Greatest Love of All

Just reading the description brings me back to the tears I cried long ago when I read this. Such selflessness of unconditional love. A great and bountiful tree gives all that it has out of its love for the child. Her leaves, apples, her branches, trunk, everything for his happiness. The relationship between the tree and the boy is very much similiar to that between a mother and her child; despite getting nothing in return for a long time, the tree puts the boy's needs foremost. In the twilight of his death, the boy returns, when he is old and gray, when he is weary and his life is lived; he returns to the tree. Though when he does, she is as he left her, a stump, a shadow of what she was. She seems to be the saddest in that she has nothing more to offer him, but all he seeks is a place to rest, and she offers what remains of her, her stump, for him to rest upon. This book came under much controversy, but I have to say with misty eyes that this is a heartachingly beautiful book.

10/10