Apples

Publishers Weekly

This fall, a bumper crop of informational titles feeds hungry minds. Apples by Ken Robbins uses hand-tinted photographs and accessible text to explain how apples are grown, harvested, pressed into cider and otherwise used as food. An author's note elucidates apple-speak ("Today, when we say, `You're the apple of my eye,' it means you're something very special to me") and points out the fruit's role in literature and folklore.

Children's Literature

Just looking at the beautiful red apple on the cover makes you want to reach out and take a bite. You can almost feel that crisp, tart taste and feel the delicious juices and the great taste of a fresh apple. Robbins extols the virtues of an apple, which is a perfect portable food, and he lets readers know that apples certainly come in colors other than red and that they have been grown for thousands of years. Although apples can be grown from seeds, most orchards graft a branch to get a particular type of apple. It takes ten years before it is ready to grow fruit. When the trees bloom, the bees need to come and do their job fertilizing the flowers with pollen. When the petals fall off, the apple begins to grow and depending on the type of apple and the climate, they will be ready for harvest in ten to twenty weeks. Apples can be pressed for juice and cider, others are baked in pies, some are used for applesauce, and some are just eaten out of hand. It is all illustrated with wonderful photographs including an illustration of an antique cider press. The closing pages provide more information about apples—famous sayings, stories from the Bible, references from Greek mythology, and the tales of William Tell and Johnny Appleseed. The closing page shows the most common apples grown and to add a little humor, the author has clearly indicated the one that is his personal favorite. A perfectly delicious picture book. 2002, Atheneum,
— Marilyn Courtot

School Library Journal

Gr 2-4-"An apple is a wonderful thing-a perfect handful of portable food, wrapped in a package of its very own skin." Robbins wraps his tribute to the popular fruit in a slim package of simple text and artistically rendered photographs. He begins by explaining the growing cycle, goes on to discuss the ways apples are enjoyed as food, and concludes with some added notes on foods and beverages, common phrases, and bits of history and literature. Robbins's photographs, enhanced through hand tinting or soft focus, succeed in varying degrees. The first few pages show a static assembly of four apples on a white page, an odd view of a small tree trunk that doesn't demonstrate the accompanying point, and a blurred unlovely view of trees in blossom. Suddenly, in mid-book, the facing pages become beautiful, coherent units. An enlarged lush view of apple blossoms resembling a fine, soft painting faces an exquisite cutaway of the flower's stamens, pistil, and seed chamber. A vibrant, homely pot of apple chunks atop a stove faces a smaller bowl of thick applesauce. Appealing portraits of children enjoying the fruit and a few views of orchard workers and equipment round out the presentation, and the final page depicts 12 popular varieties. Gail Gibbons's Apples (Holiday, 2000), Betsy Maestro's How Do Apples Grow? (HarperCollins, 1992), and Charles Micucci's Life and Times of the Apple (Orchard, 1996) offer more detailed explanations, but there's always room for another apple, and this pleasant introduction is a welcome addition.-Margaret Bush, Simmons College, Boston Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information.

Kirkus Reviews

"An apple is a wonderful thing-a perfect handful of portable food, wrapped in a package of its very own skin." So begins this-one would have to say delicious-story of how apples grow and the ways they come to us. Robbins's (Thunder on the Plains, 2001, etc.) photographs are hand-colored, giving them an old-fashioned feel but also allowing them a vibrancy and-one would have to say juiciness-that complements the text. Readers learn how apples are rarely grown from seed, but grafted, about apple blossoms and the work of bees in the orchard, how apples are harvested, and some of their many uses. A century-old cider press and an apple-cheeked girl eyeing a glass of cider are among the pictures, and it is very hard to gaze upon the pot of apples turning into applesauce or the apple slices in pie crust without salivating. Robbins employs a nice selection of close-up and wider views, of apples dancing on a white page or full-bleed of a boy picking apples in a tree. A not-entirely-serious authorial "More About Apples" is appended. Would make a yummy storytime with Deborah Turney Zagwyn's Apple Batter (1999) and Nancy Elizabeth Wallace's Apples, Apples, Apples (2000). (Picture book/nonfiction. 5-8)