The Apple Pie That Papa Baked

The Apple Pie That Papa Baked This twist on "There was an old lady who swallowed a fly..." features a Papa who bakes an apple pie for his daughter, and all the things that went into baking it. Simple and sentimental, this book helps teach an appreciation for the natural world and where our food comes from. Many of the pages contain only pictures, encouraging pre-reading children to participate in telling the story as well.

We recently checked this book out at the library, and my 3 year old can't get enough of it. He is constantly pulling it down from the shelf. My older (6 and 9) love it as well. It is something of a life cycle book starting with the apple pie and where the apples come from and how they grew, etc, etc. We live on a farm and had just recently made a fresh apple pie so the kids really loved reading about this! I give 5 stars to the artist. Although he uses only 4 colors to illustrate with, his drawings are very clever. My oldest kept staring at the pictures--with each reading he'd notice something different that was 'hidden' in the drawings. They love the personality that is drawn into each animal. We will be getting a copy of this book for our home library.

Lauren Thompson's The Apple Pie That Papa Baked puts the homey dessert into a cosmic framework in this delightfully nostalgic story of apple-picking time. The story begins with a little girl wakening in her rustic farmhouse to the sound of a rooster's crowing and the happy sight of her father heading out to the orchard with his apple-picking ladder. Following him, the child catches up in time to spend the day together collecting apples, until the hungry pair return to share the making of a delicious juicy apple pie. Thompson's lyric text echoes the format of the traditional "This is the house that Jack built...." story as it takes a sweeping view of the cycle of life which brings an apple pie to our table: em>This is the world, blooming with life, <br />That spins with the sun, fiery and bright, <br />That lights the sky, wide and fair...</em> <br /> <br />The text celebrates the water cycle which "drops the rain, cool and fresh" to water the roots of the crooked but strong tree which bears the fruit which yields a treat for the eye and, warm and sweet, for the child, her father and us, too. <br /> <br />Jonathan Bean's 1940's-style illustrations, reminiscent of Helen Sewall's original illustrations for Wilder's "Little House" books, utilize a sepia and black palette and curving lines which evoke the cycles of the earth and sun perfectly. A perfect story for reading aloud at home (preferably while the pie bakes) or at school during those seasonal units on fall and apple-harvesting time.

There's a difference between self-centered nostalgia and respectful inspiration, but the line between the two is difficult to walk. Every season there's a handful of books that try to reference the authors and illustrators of the past with mixed results. If it goes wrong then the book ends up feeling like a pale knock-off of the classics we already know and love. If the book goes well then you know that the author/illustrator knew how to separate their inspiration from their own creativity. There's a reason I didn't review Lauren Thompson and Jonathan Bean's "The Apple Pie that Papa Baked" right off the bat. I think I may have been a little afraid to pick up the story. It looked so pretty that I was afraid that picking it up and reading it would lead to sorrow, tears, and rending of garments (not necessarily in that order). You can imagine my surprise and delight then when I finally worked up the nerve to skim the pages, only to find the book readable and a true stunner from beginning to end. Inspiration meets true original quality in this inspired cumulative tale. The kind of book simply designed to be treasured. Told in a cumulative format, a small girl discusses the various steps taken by her father to produce a pie. The first line is "This is the pie, warm and sweet, that Papa baked." The second line, "These are the apples, juicy and red, that went in the pie, warm and sweet, that Papa baked." And so on. As the story encompasses the tree that grew the apples, the roots the fed the tree, the rain that watered the roots, etc. we watch father and daughter pick the apples, make the pie, and attract the attention of most of the denizens on the farm. Soon Papa and daughter are high-tailing it through the farmyard, back to the apple tree, where the daughter points out that her father made the pie, "for me . . . and for you." Everyone then gets some pie and snuggles down for the night, satiated. The fascinating thing about this story is that in spite of the fact that a cumulative form can only go backwards (you begin with the end product and then work yourself back to its proto-beginnings) Bean found a way to go forward in time visually. You may begin with the image of a pie, but then the book doubles back and you see Papa picking apples, baking the pie, and running about with his daughter. The words themselves, however, have become cosmic. They go so far as to present the very world itself ("blooming with life") and then pare it down and down and down until all you're left with is that single apple pie. So while Thompson's story grows larger and more universal with every consecutive line, Bean gets smaller and more personal. The combination makes for an eclectic bit of storytelling. Kudos to Simon and Schuster for having the guts to produce a book with only three colors (yellow, black, and red). I don't know who the editor on this puppy was, but they must have fought mightily to bring to bear a book that not only references

The Apple Pie That Papa Baked is a book for ages 2-5. The format is a story line that builds on each previous line, adding to then repeating all previous stanzas. Not complicated, cute, and with entertaining illustrations (as in the, "Sally, do you see the cow?" type). The illustration style is an "old" style, common in books from the 50s and 60s. I can see kids liking this book, and asking for it to be read repeatedly. Then the reader reads a portion of the line, and the listener finishes it. Enjoy!