APPLE GRUMBLE

Lewis-Jones returns with another installment of his Bad Apple picture-book series starring one foul fruit.

Antihero Apple is up to no good again. He “drank Pea’s tea, and stole Cat’s hat, and other naughty things like that.” Granny Smith, “one of the oldest apples,” lectures him about his bad manners, and Red and Golden, “two delicious apples,” urge him to be sweet like them. The popular apples (Bramley, Braeburn, and Cox) suggest that he show a little more team spirit, and the “fabulous apples”—Honeycrisp, Gala, Pink Lady, and Jazz—advise him to let go of his anger. But Apple is too hardcore (pun intended) of a grouch and a troublemaker to listen. It’s Pineapple’s birthday, and Apple crashes the party, filches Pineapple’s party hat, and imprisons the rest of the apples in an apple crumble. Readers hoping for a comeuppance for Apple (like the one he got in the previous book in the series) will be disappointed. In a darkly humorous, picaresque ending, the fate of the other apples is left unknown, and Apple learns nothing—once a rotten apple, always a rotten apple. Lewis-Jones’ sparingly narrated text has a certain appeal for those who appreciate dark wit. Sanders’ minimalist illustrations are playful and expressive and use watercolor washes effectively to vary the appearances of the anthropomorphic characters.

Amusingly irreverent, but young children will feel the lack of a moral or an apple-ly–ever-after.