Golden delicious A Cinderella apple story

Anna Egan Smucker

Book - 2008

When Paul and Lloyd Stark from Missouri were looking for the perfect apple, they found it in Anderson Mullins' shiny yellow apples from West Virginia, in a story based on real events about how the Golden Delicious apple came to be.

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Subjects
Genres
Picture books
Published
Morton Grove, Ill. : Albert Whitman & Company 2008.
Language
English
Main Author
Anna Egan Smucker (-)
Other Authors
Kathleen Hadam Kemly (illustrator)
Physical Description
unpaged : col. ill
ISBN
9780807529874
Contents unavailable.
Review by Booklist Review

This lively, true tale is set in the American heartland more than 100 years ago. The Stark brothers dream of cultivating the perfect new apple in their Missouri nursery, and farmers send them floods of varieties to try, but even fruits that look like royalty do not taste good. Then a poor farmer in the hills of West Virginia finds a new tree with Golden Delicious apples in his field, and he sends the fruit to the Starks. At first the brothers are dismissive of the yellow apples until they taste them and find what they've been searching for. They rush by train and on horseback, find the tree, and graft twigs onto their own apple trees. Since then, Golden Delicious apples have become known as the queen of the apple world and billions have been harvested. A note fills in the botany, including how grafting works, and the folksy, colored-pencil illustrations, shaded with lots of earthy golds and greens, show the ordinary people who find glowing surprise.--Rochman, Hazel Copyright 2008 Booklist

From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by School Library Journal Review

Gr 1-4-More than 100 years ago, in Louisiana, MO, the Stark brothers were searching for a new fantastic apple to sell. At the same time, hundreds of miles away in Clay County, WV, Anderson Mullins, inspecting his new farm, came across an amazing tree loaded with golden apples; he sent the Starks three of them. From these two events emerges the story of the discovery and successful marketing of the Golden Delicious apple. The narrative is simple and direct, with an occasional flair: "The sun poured down hot as apple butter just out of the kettle. His white shirt stuck to him tighter than the skin on a grape, but he didn't care." From the subtitle, readers might expect a deeper development of that reference to Cinderella, but after an initial comment by Lloyd Stark-"This just might be our Cinderella!"-it is not mentioned again. Kemly's soft pastel illustrations provide interesting historical details, including dress and transportation, and help to move the story along. An author's note gives more background, along with details about the grafting process. Resourceful teachers could easily find history and science connections to this story.-Lee Bock, Glenbrook Elementary School, Pulaski, WI (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 Kirkus Book Review

This lightly fictionalized story of the golden delicious apple truly reads like a fairy tale. In 1905 Missouri, the famous Stark Bro's Nursery is the place farmers send their apples, hopeful that the brothers will want to sell the apples to their customers. But Paul and Lloyd are picky, likening each taste of a new apple to trying a glass slipper on another woman's foot. Meanwhile, in West Virginia, Anderson Mullins discovers a one-of-a-kind apple tree on his property that produces the most delicious golden apples. They win fair ribbons, yield year after year and stay sweet even through winter storage. In 1914 he sends three to the Starks and it becomes their Cinderella apple. Paul journeys to West Virginia to buy the apple tree, bringing back twigs to graft onto the trees back home. And from that one tree, every golden delicious apple is descended. The colors of Kemly's charming watercolor-and-ink illustrations neatly evoke the time period and the agricultural theme. A standout amidst the proliferation of apple books found in elementary classrooms. (author's note) (Picture book. 6-10) Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.