Up, Up. Up! It's Apple-Picking Time

This picture book is wonderful for fall story times (pre-school through 2nd grade). I'd recommend bringing some apples along with you though because the colorful illustrations and evocative descriptions will leave you and your listeners hungry for more!

Apple picking time in Michigan is very special. We even have dwarf trees for little ones to reach. Preschool storytimes love the flow of the story and the bright colorful illustrations. You can almost taste the sweetness and sense the crispness of the apples. Up, Up, Up!: It's Apple-Picking Time would make a great felt board or puppet presentation. Take it from a grandmother and a children's librarian, Jody Shapiro's story of picking and selling apples and time spent with different generations within a family fits the bill

In this hurried world, Jody Shapiro's lovely book "Up, Up, Up! It's Apple Picking Time" (beautifully illustrated by Kitty Harvill) captures perfectly the warmth of extended family life and the wonder of new experiences. It's a simple story told in sensory rich language; giving us red, green, yellow and pink apples, "cool and crunchy and sweet," with evocative names like Anna, Stark Red, Winesap, Arkansas Black and Winter Banana. Along with Myles and Amber-the brother and sister in the story-- we breathe in the perfume of apple cider and "fresh-baked apple dumplings, floating like islands in a sea of milk". But, best of all is the time spent with family, picking and selling apples, and lying on a rug in front of the fireplace at the end of the day, when Grandpa plays his old jazz records and everyone dances. "Up, Up, Up! It's Apple Picking Time" has become one of my two-year-old grandson's most requested stories. Together, we've picked (Gordon)apples from a backyard tree and made "Granny's Microwave-Baked Apples," using the delicious and foolproof recipe at the end of the book. This is a book to share with a child you love.

I purchased this book for my three-year-old grandson and we talked about both relatives and farming as we read it. His family had been to pick apples so it reminded him of things that they had done on that trip. It was a wonderful book to read and then gave us lots to talk about as we "reread" the pictures. This is a special grandparent/grandchild book.

What a team Jody Shapiro and Kitty Harvill make! This book, a delightful story about a family's time on the ancestral apple farm, is brought to vivid life by the most captivating creative illustrations (done through what looks like constructing images with multicolored papers). You and your child will cherish reading this book over and over AND it will make you both dash to the kitchen to eat apple everthing. This book is good for the soul and the health!