“You’re such a good big sister!” warbles her frazzled mom. As a squad of helpline techies and bevies of neighbors bearing sludge cake and like treats roll in, the cluttered and increasingly crowded scene deteriorates into madcap chaos-until at last Cath, with help from Roomba-like robodog Sprocket, stages an intervention by whisking the hapless new arrival off to a backyard workshop for a proper assembly and software update. Robo-parents Diode and Lugnut present daughter Cathode with a new little brother-who requires, unfortunately, some assembly.Īrriving in pieces from some mechanistic version of Ikea, little Flange turns out to be a cute but complicated tyke who immediately falls apart…and then rockets uncontrollably about the room after an overconfident uncle tinkers with his basic design. Growth and change become wondrous things in this well-conceived and -executed nature story. Parents might take this cue and discuss how human lives and the lives of trees, plants and all of nature remain interconnected, bound by similar patterns. A young girl navigates the apple’s life cycle through the course of the book, and observant readers will see that her own life (friendship, love, children) remains in step with the natural evolution she’s observing.

Each phase is introduced with a highlighted imperative verb: “ Bloom apple tree and dress yourself in pink and white blossoms.” The language rings as both forceful and joyous, in tune with nature’s powerful beauty.

Gudeon’s folk-art–style paintings depict the apple’s life cycle in pleasantly busy illustrations with rich purples, reds and blues against an earthy, sand-colored backdrop. Readers follow an apple from tree to market to mouth when birds pick the seeds from the nibbled core, a tree sprouts, bursting with blossoms in spring and providing a new crop of apples in summer.

One red apple harriet ziefert