Shel Silverstein's children's book "The Giving Tree" is the gift that keeps on giving. Giving something, anyway. Here's the entire plot: There is a tree and there is a boy. The tree loves the boy very ...

Last year, I wrote a story about the importance and power of small acts of kindness during the holiday season in the San Antonio Express-News. Those reflections feel even more urgent today. I now feel ...

What if the Giving Tree said "no" to the boy? Thousands of adults online are resonating with alternate endings to classic children’s books that may not have aged well in light of modern-day gentle ...

This story is part of Grist’s Summer Dreams arts and culture series, a weeklong exploration of how popular fiction can influence our environmental reality. If you have warm, fuzzy memories of reading ...