Our book bag has a bit of an apple theme right now. Starting with this new book by one of my favorite paper cutting artists, Nikki McClure. I saw Apple on the shelf at the garden a few weeks ago and bought it right away. It is black and white and red, and the images are so nice. This is the kind of book my girls would have loved as infants. High contrast images with kind faces – if you have a favorite new baby this would make an excellent fall gift. Or substitute this book for the apple on your favorite teacher’s desk.
In keeping with the theme, we ventured across the river to our favorite orchard to pick some of our own. Looking forward to a week of pies and gingerbread and cakes and muffins. I’ll post some of our favorite apple recipes later this week.
You could add this apple gem to your shelf as well – One Red Apple by Harriet Ziefert. F is particularly enamoured with this one. It’s another book that follows an apple from seed to flower to fruit to seed, and we “pick” our own apples with our fingers from the pages with satisfying “plucking” noises, and chomp our imaginary fruits noisily while we read it. I love the page that opens up for the big, tall, apple tree. The girls in the book wear long braids like my own apple pickers, and eat them right off the trees as well.
Speaking of eating noisily (and quickly) – there’s a new teeny, tiny bakery at the orchard where they serve up apple cider donuts and pumpkin donuts. Right now it’s apple donut time, and these things are amazing. Skip breakfast and head over early for these. I watched the woman making a fresh batch and the whole place smelled like apple heaven.
The apple tree bookbag wouldn’t be complete without this third apple favorite in our house. The Giving Tree by Shel Silverstein is a bit of a yardstick in our family. E was a very patient listener from birth to any and all stories read to her – no matter the length. F was a little bit different. We had to start with shorter books and build up to the longer ones as her attention span lengthened. I tried reading The Giving Tree to her a few times but she would lose interest somewhere in the middle. After she turned two I picked it up again to test her out – she was sitting still for extended lengths of time for stories, and I thought it was worth a shot. We read through the entire story – and it’s a quiet story to me – so I read it that way. It’s slow, and steady, and the story weaves through years and years of this young boy’s life. When I reached the last page and closed the book she whispered “Again.” I knew then that I had another reader on my hands.
We came home with 20+ pounds of apples and tummies full of cider donuts. A pretty good September haul. Am I missing anything from the apple bookbag? Do share.
Find these titles at your favorite local independent bookstore. Happy reading!