Review by Booklist Review
*Starred Review* The familiar cumulative tale The House That Jack Built receives a gentle, loving twist in this nostalgically illustrated story. The end is the beginning as a pigtailed girl introduces the apple pie warm and sweet that Papa baked. Then moving backward, the girl runs from her ramshackle house out to the tree crooked and strong, where shiny red apples are waiting to be picked. The roots, deep and fine, feed the tree that grows the apples that go into the pie. Then the text becomes ever more expansive: rain waters the roots, clouds drop the rain, the sky carries the clouds, the sun lights the sky until, finally, the world, blooming with life, spins around the sun and causes the natural wonders that result in one special pie. The text is dear, and it's well matched by delightful illustrations. Bean uses the best of old and new in artwork that harkens back to the works of Lois Lenski, Robert McClosky, and especially Wanda Gag. With dun-colored backgrounds and black-and-gold line work (occasionally brightened with red), the intricately detailed art is reminiscent of the time when picture books were rarely full color. In a brief note, Bean explains how he works: extensive drawing, then scanning into his computer, where he recomposes and recolors the images. The almost wordless concluding spreads, which picture father and daughter sharing the pie with their animal friends, exude love.--Cooper, Ilene Copyright 2007 Booklist
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Thompson (Polar Bear Night) and Bean (At Night, reviewed above) cook up a delicious homage to vintage children's books. Describing the eponymous pie, the author replicates with natural grace the cumulative structure and rhythm of "The House That Jack Built"-"This is the tree, crooked and strong,/ that grew the apples, juicy and red,/ that went in the pie, warm and sweet,/ that Papa baked." Bean-who names his influences as Virginia Lee Burton and Wanda G g-unfolds the action on a ramshackle farm, limiting his palette to three colors, black, ochre and a splash of red. Visual excitement comes from the textures of rough bark and rolling hills. The farmer father, his daughter with her tight braids and feedsack dress, and their farm look a lot like renderings from WPA-era woodcuts and lithographs. The family livestock and lean black cat peer hopefully through the window as Papa and daughter peel apples into a pie plate. All the characters, human and animal, appear in silhouette at sunset in a resounding finale: "This is the world,/ blooming with life,/ that spins with the sun, fiery and bright,/ that lights the sky, wide and fair...." The last page indicates an unexpected guest dropping by for the last piece of pie. This tribute to the artists of an earlier age should take its place among bedtime favorites; if it persuades families to explore picture book classics, so much the better. Ages 5-up. (Aug.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by School Library Journal Review
PreS-Gr 2-A father lovingly prepares a treat for his daughter in this charming story. The cumulative text begins with the apples ("These are the apples, juicy and red, that went in the pie, warm and sweet, that Papa baked") and then moves on to the tree that grew the fruit, its roots, the rain," the clouds, the sky, the sun, and finally the world ("blooming with life"). Bean's fine folk-style artwork complements the lyrical text. The illustrations were each drawn in black ink on three separate sheets of vellum, scanned into a computer, and recomposed and colored. They use only red, black, and yellow, and the simple palette and buff-colored pages make the images sharp and elegant. The pictures effectively and humorously move the story forward, depicting the activities of the characters and several tag-along farm animals as they pick the apples, prepare the pie, and head back to the tree for a picnic. While the text blossoms out to encompass the whole world, the illustrations focus on the homey setting and the affection shared by father and daughter, keeping the story grounded until its sweet conclusion. A delightful and engaging read.-Catherine Callegari, Gay-Kimball Library, Troy, NH (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
(Primary) This House-That-Jack-Built-style rhyme about the provenance of an apple pie begins with "these are the apples, juicy and red" then moves outward to include the tree, its roots, and the rain, finally reaching "the world, blooming with life." Likewise, the illustrations start with close-ups of the tree, then pull back to show more and more of the landscape until we see an all-encompassing double-page spread of woods and farmland, the sun and the moon, wild and domestic animals. The art tells its own story, adding a character: Papa gets help from his young daughter with everything from picking the apples to eating the freshly baked pie beneath the apple tree and sharing it with the farmhouse animals (plus a fox from the woods) who have waited patiently all day. The use of only three colors (red, mustard brown, and black) and an illustrative style infused with touches of both Virginia Lee Burton and Wanda Gçg give the art an old-fashioned sensibility -- fitting for this cozy tale of a homemade pie, "warm and sweet," told in a rhyme that gathers in the whole world, from a tiny apple to the big sky. From HORN BOOK, (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
You can always tell when the cooks have added a special touch of TLC to a recipe. In this case, a could-have-been standard cumulative tale of a fatherly farmer collecting apples and baking a pie is made extraordinary by its fine folk art/folksong sensibilities, its particularly appetizing apple-pie palette of crusty golden-brown, buttery cream, apple-red and cast-iron black and by the artist's inspired use of line. Bean's art, which he acknowledges is "strongly influenced by the work of Virginia Lee Burton and Wanda Gag," is a lively and life-full song of its own, an organic and curvilinear concoction in which circles of visual narrative build upon each other just as Thompson's toothsome text builds upon itself, until readers are cuddled up in a homespun, apple-shaped embrace. Thompson again proves herself a master of mixing up a treat--warm, sweet and satisfying; Bean, who explains his multi-step creative process in a note, is someone to watch. (Picture book. 5-8) Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
