Tree

Children's Literature

Stunning illustrations and an unusual format are the most striking features of this book about the life cycle of an apple tree. The beginning stages of the growth of an apple tree are documented with very detailed illustrations on pages cut to reveal an index of the first seven stages of the process. The reader watches the seed develop into a plant with its first leaves, spring buds, blossoms, produce new seeds and tiny fruits. The apple seed is shown with a millipede, a worm and a crane fly larva as well as a full landscape. This level of detail is carried through out the book. Honeybees, as well as other pollinators, come to the tree in the springtime and spread pollen from flower to flower. As the apples ripen there are many more visitors to the tree, including wasps, ladybugs and the holly blue butterfly. As the fruit ripens and falls to the ground more visitors come and eat the fruit. This helps spread the apple seeds over a large area. The trees buds survive the winter because of a fuzzy coating that protects them. 2004, North Word Press, Ages 5 to 10.
—Kristin Harris

School Library Journal

PreS-Gr 3-These titles present the life cycles of a duck and an apple tree in lovely, painterly pictures and text. In the first book, proud mallard parents start out in a nest near a pond; eggs appear on the following spread, one in a cutaway showing an embryo chick's growth. Various predators threaten the hatchlings and, after six months, both male and female ducks are full grown and ready to migrate. Supplemental spreads on feeding in a pond, feathers, migrations, and courtship extend the information. From seed through the first six years of growth, the apple tree grows, matures, flowers, and produces fruit. Various denizens of the field cohabit at different times and in different seasons-snails threaten the sapling; nuthatches build a spring nest in the six-year-old tree; foxes, wasps, birds, and a squirrel feast on the autumn fruit. Pair this book with Gail Gibbons's The Seasons of Arnold's Apple Tree (Harcourt, 1984) and Apples (Holiday, 2000), Zoe Hall's The Apple Pie Tree (Blue Sky, 1996), and Johnny Appleseed biographies-those by Steven Kellogg (HarperCollins, 1988) and Reeve Lindbergh (Little, Brown, 1990) are excellent. The writing in both books is clear and direct and the child-enticing design-graduated pages, icons for each topic, illustrated glossaries, and the life cycle presented in a circle on the back endpapers-make these winners for all libraries and classrooms.-Dona Ratterree, New York City Public Schools Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.