Seriously. What is up with the ending?
The tree, who is now a stump, offers herself up as a resting place for the boy, who is now an old man. It isn't exactly a Disney ending. What it is is a Shel Silverstein ending. And it was at least partly because of this ending that it took Silverstein four years to get the book published.
That's the truth. People liked the book when Silverstein showed it to them, but they didn't think it really fit as literature for children or adults. Plus, there was the fact that it had such a morose ending. Finally, though, an editor at Harper & Row decided to take on the book "as is," without major editorial changes. As Silverstein said, she did it "because life, you know, has pretty sad endings. You don't have to laugh it up even if most of my stuff is humorous" (source).
Um, yeah. Trust us, Shel. No one's laughing it up at the end of this book.