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Wednesday, August 5, 2009

Library Day - The Apple Pie Tree Book Review

Though it's not quite back-to-school yet for most of us, it will be here before you know it, so I don't think it's too early for an apple book review.

The Apple Pie Tree...Sounds Like a Delicious Tree To Me!

kamel622's Full Review:

Product Rating: Product Rating: 5.0
Pros: Excellent illustrations, progressive story, Mother Nature

Cons: Nope

The Bottom Line: The Apple Pie Tree is a wonderful book of Mother Nature and how things grow.
The bottom line wants an apple pie!


The Story

This very well illustrated book is about the cycle of life and how an apple tree can become an apple pie tree.

It starts with a very bare and empty apple tree, in wintertime. There is nothing but the brown branches, but as spring begins the book shows how leaves begin to grow and how robins build a nest.

As time passes the tree develops little pink flower buds and blue eggs in the robins nest.

The story goes along with the robins breaking through the eggs, and learning to fly and how the petals grow on the tree until the winds blow and they all fall to the ground.

Through wind and rain the tree stand tall until one day little green apples begin to grow. Through the summer the trees apples continue to grow until they are red, big and round and ready to be picked.

Peeling the apples and then cutting them up, they are added to a pie crust and covered in cinnamon and sugar and baked in the oven. The nameless children in the book enjoy an apple pie that they’ve grown themselves.


The Illustrations

The wonderful illustrations are very similar to that of Eric Carle’s. They are torn paper collage, with most pages being done in soft pinks, browns, blues, yellows, greens and red, red for the apples.

Each page has large illustrations and text making it an easy book to hold up and read and everyone can see them. The majority of each page is filled with the activity of the page, with very little white background left. The text is placed where it is easily seen and doesn’t compete with drawings to be viewed.

My Feelings

I love the illustrations in this book. They look very realistic and are colorful enough to catch the eye but not filled with too much activity or detail. With children it seems that the more simple the line, the more they are drawn to the illustrations.

The story is a cute one, but I’m not sure that with my daycare children are quite following the progression of the tree to apple to pie concept that this story is about although that doesn’t detract from their enjoyment of the book. They do enjoy hearing this story and pretending to pick apples, being the breeze that blows, running through sprinklers, and finally eating the apple pie. I’ve been able to incorporate many activities into this story, which makes it an excellent book for young children and elementary school children as well.

I also like that it shows the different seasons and what the tree looks like through each time of year. The robins building a nest, laying eggs, eggs hatching and finally the baby robins flying really gives the children a bit of information about how birds are born and shows how time progresses in this story.

The last page of this book is very informational and includes a very simple recipe for apple pie and a short four panel description of how bees help apples grow.


Nuts & Bolts

The Apple Pie Tree
was written by Zoe Hall (It’s Pumpkin Time) and illustrated by Shari Halpern.

The Blue Sky Press, an imprint of Scholastic Inc, published this 1996 book. And recommends it for children in preschool through 1st grade, however I do feel that children in up to around 3rd grade would enjoy reading this book and learning about making an apple pie.

The jacket price of this 32 page hardcover book is $13.95 US and higher in Canada.

ISBN: 0-590-62382-6


Recommended:
Yes

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