The Fairview Review: Virtual Book Tour The Last Apple Tree

ABOUT THE BOOK

Ages: 9-12 | 264 Pages

Publisher: Holiday House (2025) | ISBN: 978-0823461882

Publisher’s Book Summary: 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.

PURCHASE LINK

Amazon

Barnes and Noble

Bookshop.org

MY REVIEW

Books told from alternating viewpoints aren’t too uncommon, although some are more well written than others. This book strikes a delicate balance between the thoughts and experiences of Sonnet, Zeke, and the apple tree in the backyard of Sonnet’s family home.

Zeke is trying to fit in with the other students at middle school after being homeschooled by his father for years. It isn’t easy. Classwork seems boring in comparison to the work his father had him complete. He doesn’t know how to get along with peers like everyone else does. And he is very worried that everyone will find out his father is a “tree hugger.” Having to work with the prickly neighbor girl is just one more thing to endure and get through as quickly as possible.

Sonnet is just trying to help her family be happy. She and her mother and younger sister have moved in with her grandfather after her grandmother’s death. Her mom is trying to become a published writer. Her little sister invents rules for new countries like “Socker,” where everyone must wear a sock on their head. And Gramps is trying not to give in to the sadness of missing his wife. When a class assignment has her and Zeke interviewing Gramps about his life, they discover there are family stories that even Sonnet’s mother doesn’t know - but the apple tree does.

The book delves into a lot of different themes. What makes a good friend? What makes a good parent? Should families have secrets? Do children have to believe exactly the same things as their parents and support exactly the same causes? How important is honesty? There will be a lot of reflection and discussion at the end of this story.

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.

TOUR SCHEDULE

Monday, September 22, 2025

The Children’s Book Review

Book Review of The Last Apple Tree

Tuesday, September 23, 2025

@nissa_the.bookworm

Book Review of The Last Apple Tree

Wednesday, September 24, 2025

The Children’s Book Review

Author Interview with Claudia Mills

Thursday, September 25, 2025