in the Kitchen (1974). Silverstein created an adult version of the story in a cartoon entitled "I Accept the Challenge." In the cartoon, a nude woman cuts off a nude man's arms and legs with scissors, then sits on his torso in a pose similar to the final drawing in The Giving Tree in which the old man sits on the stump. Jackson and Dell (1979) wrote an "alternative version" of the story for teaching purposes that was entitled "The Other Giving Tree." It featured two trees next to each other and a boy growing up. One tree acted like the one in The Giving Tree, ending up as a stump, while the other tree stopped at giving the boy apples, and does not give the boy its branches or trunk. At the end of the story, the stump was sad that the old man chose to sit under the shade of the other tree. Cultural influences The Giving Tree Band took its name from the book. Plain White T's EP Should've Gone to Bed has a song “The Giving Tree,” written by Tim Lopez. The 2010 short film I'm Here, written and directed by Spike Jonze, is based on The Giving Tree; the main character Sheldon is named after Shel Silverstein. In the A&E drama series Bates Motel, antagonist Norma Bates references The Giving Tree when describing parenthood: “Parents do not have needs. You ever read the book “The Giving Tree”? It's about a tree, and this kid keeps coming and taking stuff from it his whole life, until there's nothing left but a stump. And then the kid sits on the stump. That's being a parent.” References Further reading External links 1964 children's books Children's books adapted into films Books by Shel Silverstein American picture books Environmental fiction books Fictional trees Harper & Row books