Trail of Apple Blossoms

by Irene Hunt, Sherri Partridge (Illustrator)

Book by

Genres: Biography

64 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1993

About the author

Irene Hunt was an American children's writer known best for historical novels. She was a runner-up for the Newbery Medal for her first book, Across Five Aprils, and won the medal for her second, Up a Road Slowly. For her contribution as a children's writer she was U.S. nominee in 1974 for the biennial, international Hans Christian Andersen Award, the highest international recognition available to creators of children's books. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irene_Hunt]

Reviews

[Katie Lorsch · Rating 4 out of 5]

An engaging short read about Johnny Appleseed. I love how we get to know Johnny’s character and the type of man he was. To be loved and esteemed by your fellow men, love and serve them.

[Wayne Walker · Rating 5 out of 5]

It is around 1807, and ten year old Hoke Bryant is travelling with his parents, Jason and Sarah, and two year old sister Rachel by Conestoga wagon from their old home in Boston, MA, to a new home in the Ohio Valley country. However, Rachel is very sick and won’t eat anything. The Bryants have already lost two other children between Hoke and Rachel, so they stop in Pennsylvania at the cabin of a little man named John Chapman who has planted a large apple orchard. Mr. Chapman’s knowledge of various herbs and foods enables him to help little Rachel to recover. As the Bryants finally prepared to leave, Hoke asked Chapman, known as Johnny Appleseed, if he might ever come further west and hoped that they would meet again.

The following year, Chapman did decide to go west and help the settlers plant more apple trees. For five years, he asked everyone whom he saw if they knew anything about the Bryants. Did they survive the journey with its dangers of Indian raids, blizzards, and floods? What happened to them? Will Johnny ever see Hoke again? Trail of Apple Blossoms is an absolutely wonderful story. It is not a biography of John Chapman but a fairly short work of historical fiction for young readers based on Chapman’s life, but I would recommend it for all ages. The front flap says, “Some events in the story are said to have happened; others could have happened. The story is told, not for history, but to point up a philosophy that forgot self, denied fear, and placed love for all living things as the ultimate good.”

There is one reference to putting tobacco in a pipe, but no bad or even questionable language occurs. Author Irene Hunt, who won a Newbery Honor Award in 1965 for Across Five Aprils and a Newbery Medal in 1967 for Up a Road Slowly, writes about how Johnny says, “the good God loves the gifts given by a crooked trunk as much as…the straight and beautiful;” talks about foods which “Providence in its wisdom has provided us;” declares a thing “of the Lord’s own doing;” and wonders if something were “the Lord’s own will.” John took his Bible with him on his journeys and often read to people from the Psalms such as, “The heavens declare the glory of God” or “I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills.” Apparently Silver Burdett Press reissued this book with new illustrations by Sherri Partridge.

[Edy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Combining poetic language and an old story, Hunt has expanded the adventures of Johnny Appleseed. She has included many insights of human nature, e.g., courage is not measured by the weapons you carry but by the deeds that a someone will do in order to help his fellow men.

(I read this novel in the 70s when I was taking an adolescent lit. class. The critique came from one I did for the class.)

[Holli · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a beautiful story of John Chapman i read with my children. It is a short story - 62 pages - expanding the adventures of Johnny Appleseed. While we don't know what is true and not about this man, this story is told as an example of what a person of great character is like - a man with charity, courageous, who loved all living things. We enjoyed reading it.