Jillian Whitney

In “Just Find Your Why”, I intervened on the surface of “The Giving Tree” by Shel Silverstein. In this book, a boy plays with a tree. As he grows up, the ways he interacts with the tree change. He collects her branches, yes, her, the tree is given feminine pronouns. Then takes her apples to sell, progressing to cutting down her trunk and making a boat to sail away. The trunk is left as a stump. This is the page I painted on. Where the tree is supposed to be happy because the boy they cared for is happy, but it's the first time the tree recognizes that they are not, in fact, happy. On this page, I used masking fluid to retain the pages' original text and art, and added this scene of a teacher drinking their morning coffee, waiting for students to arrive. The tree to the left is based on a motivational poster that a former principal required teachers to make as part of our professional development. He told us we wouldn't be compensated appropriately, so we had to "find our why" for teaching. In the following pagesbof the book, the boy comes back, and the tree tells him that she has nothing left to give to him; she has become a shadow of herself. What is supposed to happen next is that the boy tells the tree that he only needs a spot to sit, and the tree, in her renewed service to the boy find happiness again. Instead, I chose to redact the text after the tree says "I have nothing left to give to you--" This change leaves the tree aware of how her giving nature was weaponized against her. The boy sits, but the tree does not respond or show happiness because of his presence. Removing the words that insist that this is a happy moment shows a much more melancholy side of the story.