By Julie Tomascik
Editor

A new accurate agricultural book is available to help young readers learn how apples are grown.

Apples for All: A Story About Grafting, the newest children’s book from Feeding Minds Press, follows Bobbi, a young girl whose family loves apples but can’t agree on which variety to grow. Gala for snacking? Granny Smith for pies? McIntosh for cider?

When Bobbi learns about grafting, her family discovers there’s room for everyone’s favorite on a single tree.

Written and illustrated by Mary Peterson, the book introduces young readers to apple production, tree grafting and the science behind growing apples while emphasizing teamwork and compromise.

It is the latest title from Feeding Minds Press, a publishing project of the American Farm Bureau Foundation for Agriculture that connects readers to agriculture through engaging, accurate stories.

Peterson said the inspiration for the book came from her childhood growing up on a family farm with an apple orchard in northeast Iowa.

“It was honestly my favorite place to be,” Peterson said. “I thought that would be a really good way of bringing that kind of a story in to teach kids just how these things really work in the real world.”

Although Bobbi’s adventure begins with choosing the perfect apple tree, readers soon discover a surprising agricultural fact that many adults don’t know—planting an apple seed won’t produce the same variety of apple as the fruit it came from.

Instead, commercial apple production relies on grafting, which is a process that joins part of one tree to another to preserve specific varieties and their unique qualities.

“I think it’s just so fascinating and it’s so unusual that an apple seed does not grow an apple tree that matches its parent,” Peterson said.

Readers also learn about watering, mulching, fertilizing and pruning. The book includes apple facts, an illustrated guide to apple varieties and a homemade applesauce recipe.

Peterson hopes the story encourages children to learn more about how their food gets from the farm to their table.

“I want kids to find a similar kind of excitement out of growing things and knowing where their food comes from,” she said.

Apples for All is available through Feeding Minds Press, Amazon and other retailers.

Feeding Minds Press is a project of the American Farm Bureau Foundation for Agriculture. The mission of the foundation is to build awareness and understanding of agriculture through education. The goal of Feeding Minds Press is to publish accurate and engaging books about agriculture that connect readers to where their food comes from and to who grows it.

Feeding Minds Press also offers several free printable books that focus on careers in agriculture.

View a list of accurate ag books available for purchase through Feeding Minds Press.

Click here for additional ag in the classroom resources from Texas Farm Bureau.