Deborah Turney ZagwynCritiques

Summary: This book tells a parallel story of Loretta and her son Delmore. While Loretta tends to her three apple trees and patiently waits for them to produce apples, Delmore spends time practicing his baseball swing to become better for his team. The story takes place in their backyard and follows the two through different seasons, weather changes, and years. One day, Delmore perfects his swing and hits the ball straight to one of his mom's apple trees. The ball makes contact with her one and only remaining apple, knocking it off its branch. Instead of being upset, Loretta is proud of Delmore's accuracy. She makes apple crumble before Delmore's big game. The following day, Delmore hits a home run and realizes that all of his hard work truly did pay off.

Genre Critique: This is a good example of realistic fiction. The setting, characters, and events are all believable. It is very realistic for a mother to have a love for gardening, while her son has a love for baseball. The book is also realistic in the fact that it takes a while for apple trees to grow and be ready to produce, just as it takes a lot of time and practice to master a sports skill. Children will be able to relate to the boy's feeling of not being good enough for his team, and following through with being persistent to work hard and become better at batting.

Media: watercolor

Both the story and the illustrations are beautiful in The Pumpkin Blanket. I never tire of reading this book and share it with my students each fall. Although the blanket goes back to where it belongs, I always feel sad for Clee who loses a dear friend.

Genre: Contemporary Realistic Fiction
Age Appropriateness: Intermediate
Media: Watercolor
Summary: Delmore, a young boy, loves baseball, but he is not very good at hitting the ball. His mother, Loretta, loves to plant, but she cannot seem to grow apples. The two of them work as hard as ever one year to overcome their inabilities, and they both succeed by the end of the year. Loretta makes an apple pie with the five apples she grew, and Delmore hit the ball instead of striking out.½

Genre: realistic fiction
Critique of Genre: This is an adorable example of realistic fiction because is shows the story of a woman who struggles with trying to get her apple trees to produce even one apple while her son works hard to hit a fair ball in his baseball league. They encourage each other and persist until they reach their goals.

This story is about a boy that is waiting for his apple tree to grow apples. While waiting for the apples to grow he plays baseball. Ans gets very good at it.

Genre: Realistic fiction/ Informational
Age Appropriateness:
Review: I believe that this book did a great job of intertwining realistic fiction and informational. It had a fun story about a boy who loved baseball and his mother who loved planting apple trees. There was a story that the kids could likely relate to, but the book also contained lots of side information about growing apple trees.

Media: mixed media