The Last Apple Tree by Claudia Mills | Blog Tour Review + Giveaway

Hello, everyone! ^^ How’s your fall going so far? October has been absolutely crazy for me, with writing, and also trying to get my author copies for Enchantria from Amazon. Which, uh, seeing as I live on the other side of the world is…. a hassle? (Totally did not take over two months and a lot of desperately trying to convince Amazon to send proof copies to Thailand last time I tried this)

But today, I am super excited to be a part of the blog tour for this wonderful middle-grade book (which I shall be reviewing today), The Last Apple Tree by Claudia Mills! I received a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. This book is a contemporary middle-grade, and it is such a deep and moving book that I totally didn’t finish in one, single sitting while eating dinner…

The blurb reads: Twelve-year-old Sonnet’s family has just moved across the country to live with her grandfather after her nana dies. Gramps’s once-impressive apple orchard has been razed for a housing development, with only one heirloom tree left. Sonnet doesn’t want to think about how Gramps and his tree are both growing old—she just wants everything to be okay.

Sonnet is not okay with her neighbor, Zeke, a boy her age who gets on her bad side and stays there when he tries to choose her grandpa to interview for an oral history assignment. Zeke irks Sonnet with his prying questions, bringing out the sad side of Gramps she’d rather not see. Meanwhile, Sonnet joins the Green Club at school and without talking to Zeke about it, she asks his activist father to speak at the Arbor Day assembly—a collision of worlds that Zeke wanted more than anything to avoid.

But when the interviews uncover a buried tragedy that concerns Sonnet’s mother, and an emergency forces Sonnet and Zeke to cooperate again, Sonnet learns not just to accept Zeke as he is, but also that sometimes forgetting isn’t the solution—even when remembering seems harder.

I loved this book! I wasn’t sure what I was expecting when I first picked up the book (I am the person who only barely skims the book blurb when it comes to middle-grade, because I pretty much love all middle-grade), but this book completely blew me away! I loved the characters in this book, and I really do love how this book has so many wonderful themes about life and change, and I enjoyed reading about how these two characters’ worlds collide and how they deal with all those struggles in their life!

I also love how this book has two points-of-view, and you get to see both Zeke and Sonnet’s perspectives on everything. I honestly love this because I think it really does show that there are two (or more) sides to every story in real life, and not everything is as perfectly simple as you might think it is.

While I loved both Zeke and Sonnet’s characters, I think Zeke is definitely my favorite character, and that is because I just relate to him so much, especially since I am homeschooled as well and I have definitely struggled with a lot of the things that Zeke struggles with, in terms of his relationship with his family and just the usual struggles that can come with homeschooling. (Honestly, he is probably one of the few characters I have related to so much, I’ve stood there blinking at the page with my mind going, “Uhhhh why is this character so much like me?!”)

Gramps is also one of my favorite characters, and I loved reading about all his stories he tells Sonnet and Zeke. Villie, Sonnet’s little sister, is so fun and so sweet, and I absolutely adore her character as well!

Another part of the book I liked were the parts of the book where the old apple tree is actually telling the story of what happened in the past, and it’s told in poetry. I think the prose there was so beautiful, and I think having a few in-between sections where the old apple tree is telling the story in poetry just fits the story so well!

Overall, this was a fantastic book, that I highly enjoyed reading! Definitely four point five out of five stars, and it is a must-read for middle-graders looking for fun, yet moving reads! So if you come across this book in a bookstore, then I simply must demand you get it! 🙂

(totally is not now looking up Claudia Mills to add every single one of her books to my TBR)

(knows that I already have an overflowing TBR that could bury a person)

(totally doesn’t add her books to the TBR anyway)

GIVEAWAY

As you can tell from the title of this blog, there is also a giveaway, which has a bunch of amazing goodies! You can enter for the chance to win one of ten signed paperback copies of The Last Apple Tree by Claudia Mills, and one lucky grand prize winner will also get a one-hour Zoom author visit with Claudia, along with signed copies of The Lost Language and a book from her wonderful chapter book series!! I wish all of my blog readers who choose to enter this giveaway the best of luck!! 🙂 To whoever is reading this, I hope you win!

A thank you to Bianca Schulze and everyone else at The Children’s Book Review for setting up this blog tour for this fantastic book and for sending me the digital review copy of this book! You can find the rest of the blog tour dates here: https://www.thechildrensbookreview.com/the-last-apple-tree-by-claudia-mills-awareness-tour/ You can also head to that link in case the thing above won’t load for you.

About the Author:

Claudia Mills is the author of over 60 books for young readers, including most recently the verse novel The Lost Language and the middle-grade novel The Last Apple Tree, as well as two chapter-book series: Franklin School Friends and After-School Superstars. Her books have been named Notable Books of the Year by the American Library Association and Best Books of the Year by the Bank Street College of Education; they have been translated into half a dozen languages. Claudia is also a professor emerita of philosophy at the University of Colorado and a faculty member in the graduate programs in children’s literature at Hollins University. She has written all her books in her faithful hour-a-day system while drinking Swiss Miss hot chocolate.

For more information, check out claudiamillsauthor.com.

And if you have made it to the end of this very long blog post (I tend to ramble quite a bit in my reviews, not to mention adding a giveaway at the end), then thank you so much for reading! I hope you enjoyed me rambling on and on about this book, and I hope you check out this book! You simply must! And don’t forget to check out the rest of the blog tour dates as well!

Now…. I am off to stare at the wall while wondering, “Why why why isn’t my plot working?!” for the hundredth time in the hopes that my work-in-progress, Island Keepers, will somehow magically write itself….

Till next time,

-Isabelle