20. The Biggest Apple Ever

 

# 20 The Biggest Apple Ever

Author: Steven Kroll

Illustrator: Jeni Bassett

Publisher: Scholastic Inc, 2011

28 pages

Fantasy

            I chose this book because it is a book that I have in my classroom at the preschool I work at. All of the children love to eat apples during snack time and this is a book I brought and read to the class one day when I knew we would be having apples for snacks. The book is about two mice that fall in love with the same apple pie. The two mice meet because there is a contest at school to see who can bring the biggest apple to the teacher. The two mice spot the same big apple at the same time and bump heads trying to get the apple and decide to bring it in together. When they saw others had apples bigger than theirs they decided to take all of the apples they had picked and decided to make the biggest apple pie.

            The illustrations in this book are made up of bright colors. The medium used is watercolors and the lines in the book help to bring definition to the expressions on the faces of all of the mice. The illustrations use very little negative space and are full of life from page to page. Some of the illustrations contain thought bubbles that are incorporated smoothly into each page.

            This book would be appropriate for kindergarten through second grade. The story could be used in a social studies lesson to discuss the topic of producers and consumers. This would be a great book to use for a character development lesson in teaching students to work together and think outside of the box when making decisions for a project. This book has no awards or honors, but is a great gift idea for any teacher.