Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
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. (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by School Library Journal Review
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 (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Horn Book Review
This entertaining account describes how apples are grown, harvested, and used. Particularly informative are the pages that discuss the planting and maintenance of orchards. The hand-tinted photos of the apples and orchards have a quirky, authentic vividness that lends warmth to the text. From HORN BOOK Spring 2003, (c) Copyright 2010. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review
"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)
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