The Last Apple Tree: Why It Is Important to Hear the Stories of Our Older Loved Ones Before It Is Too Late, a guest post by Claudia Mills

The first tiny seed that grew into my middle-grade novel The Last Apple Tree was an article I read in a University of Colorado newsletter years ago about the Boulder Apple Tree Project, created by ecology professor Katharine Suding, to preserve the county’s aging heirloom apple trees as well as the memories of those who love them.  

As the years went by, in the back of my writer mind, I pondered, and wondered, and imagined…. and one particular apple tree began to call to me: the lone survivor of a vanished orchard… and there would be an old man who still cherishes the tree… and there would be two kids, a girl and a boy, who uncover the tree’s secrets in a way that would end up changing both of them . . .

Then, of course, I had to figure out who the old man would be! And why the tree is so dear to him! And who the two kids would be! And what secrets the tree would conceal, and then reveal!

The story began to take shape.

Sonnet Granger and Zeke Morrison share a language arts class that is about to begin an oral history unit. Their teacher, Ms. Hanh, tells the students that the Library of Congress contains over 51 million books in 470 languages on 840 miles of bookshelves, but there are untold billions of stories that aren’t in any library in the world because they have never been written down. Their charge is to interview an older person to hear and record some of their stories before these are lost forever through death or dementia. 

Sonnet lives with her recently widowed grandfather, who is already becoming worrisomely forgetful, so she has an easy choice for her interviews. She is horrified that Zeke, who doesn’t know his own grandparents, signs up to interview her grandfather as well; Mr. Granger lives in a farmhouse behind Zeke’s subdivision and Zeke has always been drawn to the old man. So Sonnet and Zeke end up as reluctant, even hostile, partners.

In preparation for writing the interview scenes, I discovered the Smithsonian Institution Archives website, which has a terrific set of guidelines on “How to Do Oral History,” which includes a list of “Suggested Topics/Questions for Oral History Interviews.” Bingo! It’s hard to find a more venerable source than the legendary Smithsonian Institution. 

In my story, Sonnet is wedded to relying on the official, Smithsonian-inspired list of suggested topics Ms. Hanh distributes to the students, partly because she is conscientiously trying to do the assignment “right,” but also because she is trying with all her might not to ask anything that might bring her grieving grandfather to tears. The last thing she wants is to make Gramps even sadder.

But Zeke has no such scruples, and he keeps leading the interviews in scary directions. I have to say that the Smithsonian guidelines, endorsed by Ms. Hanh, encourage oral historians to “Allow the interviewee to drift off to topics not on your outline. These can be the best part of your interview.” The guidelines go on to say, “Do allow the interviewee to tell ‘THE STORY.’ Most interviewees have a favorite story. They will fit it in somehow. So let it happen!” 

The stories Gramps most needs to tell center on the old apple tree, where he went down on one knee as a young man to propose to Sonnet’s grandmother, where he mourned the forced sale of the rest of his beloved orchard to build a suburban subdivision, and then – finally – where a terrible tragedy occurred, so painful that it hadn’t been spoken of for decades, though the scars it left on his family – and on the tree itself – remain.

When that story finally emerges, at first Sonnet is furious at Zeke for his persistent questions. But in the end, she comes to accept that secrets can be toxic, and even difficult truth can be healing. 

The Last Apple Tree is narrated from three different points of view. Alternating chapters relate the events of the story from both Sonnet’s and Zeke’s perspective. There are also poems interspersed throughout the book from the point of view of the old apple tree. Gramps is a firm believer that trees have feelings and there are things his tree remembers in “in its very bark and branches.” I decided I believed that, too.

When I write a book, I hope first and foremost that readers will engage with MY story in its own right – care about the characters, identify with them (however different the characters may be from them in many ways), laugh at the funny parts, tear up at the sad parts, and feel satisfied when they come to the end. But here I also hope that readers may feel curious about what they might learn about their own loved ones and inspired to take the time to ask questions about their lives and listen, really listen, to the answers. 

Even if no deep, dark secrets are unearthed, they are bound to learn things – and maybe share things of their own – that will help them understand others, and maybe themselves, just a little bit better.

Meet 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.  

About The Last Apple Tree

When feuding neighbors Sonnet and Zeke are paired up for a class project, they unearth a secret that could uproot Sonnet’s family—or allow it to finally heal and grow.

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.

Award-winning author Claudia Mills brings enormous compassion and depth to this novel of unlikely friendship and generational memory.

A Junior Library Guild Gold Standard Selection

ISBN-13: 9780823457106
Publisher: Holiday House
Publication date: 06/18/2024
Age Range: 9 – 12 Years

Filed under: Guest Post