Customer Reviews

All Aboard Science Reader Station Stop 1 Apples: And How They Grow

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4 star:		(3)
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This is cute. It's pretty detailed in the life cycle of an apple tree. I should have checked it out from the library, though. It's not one of those books we just continue to go back to over and over.

My first grader brought this book home from school. She is working on reading comprehension and the simple facts were fun without being overwhelming. Perfect for the struggling reader.

One doesn't expect much from a commodity early-reading book, but this one is much worse than you'd think. The text is focused on what the author apparently feels to be the most important fact to know about apples---that they don't grow true from seed. It spends nearly half the text discussing the process of grafting, without actually using the word "grafting" or explaining how it works. ("He joins a branch to it" is the full Genesis-esque explanation.) Kid-friendly topics that would fit well into the story of how an apple grows (the role of sun, water, fertilizer, pollination by bees) are missing. All in all, it's not a very interesting story.

It is the artwork, however, that makes this a truly bad book. Although this is labeled as a "science" reader, the illustrations contain multiple inexcusable inaccuracies. For example, apple seeds are shown randomly distributed inside the apple like raisins in oatmeal (see the cover!). The transition of apple blossoms to apples shows the pink flower shrinking for three frames, then suddenly turning into a tiny red apple. Here the heavy reliance on computer clip art leads to direct disagreement with the text; the apple growing "rounder and redder" is illustrated with the same clip-art apple in sizes small, medium and large. (The same technique is used several places for a mama and baby duck, resulting in a bright-yellow "adult" duck.) Finally, although beauty is in the eye of the beholder, to my eye the drawings are just plain ugly.

I can't heap too much blame on the artist; this is clearly a work-for-hire, and instead I fault the editor. This is labeled as a "science" book, and it doesn't take much scientific knowledge to realize that the "artistic license" invoked for the apple seeds, apple development, and duck family pictures is not suitable under that label.

Postscript: we received this as a gift from my frail grandmother for our two-year old daughter. She knew it was inappropriate when she bought it, but she'd been so overwhelmed by the Borders children's department that she grabbed things that didn't seem too horrible from the nearest shelf and left. "Where are the kind of books that I read my children? Don't they have classics anymore? Is there a mail-order catalog I could use for gifts?"

I blame the publishers. With these early-reading series, they're looking for easy money from insecure middle-class parents focused on academic achievement. At least I've learned that I'll never need to buy another book of this type again, which should simplify my own Borders (and Amazon) visits.

"Apples and How They Grow" by Laura Driscoll is a great book for an early reader. It is a 32 page book with simple text. I bought this book because I wanted to introduce the topic of apples to my class.

This story talks about the different kinds of apples (some are sweet, some tart, some sour). The book focuses on the Rome apple. When planting Rome apple seeds, the seeds may or may not produce a tree with Rome apples. In fact, Rome apple trees may not produce any apples at all. The author describes apple seeds as being "tricky". It later explains how apple growers have their own tricks for producing Rome apples and Rome apple trees.

I would have preferred to have some information about the other varieties of apples, perhaps a short description of some of the more popular apples, how they look and taste.