Reviews

Apple: by Eric Gansworth

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lowkeymarie's review against another edition

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challenging emotional reflective medium-paced

4.0

katiegrrrl's review against another edition

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4.0

This was hard for me to get into. I found this interesting, but it is tagged as teen and I am not sure i see a lot of teens being interested in this.

2021 YMA Printz honor
2022 YMA American Indian Youth Literature Award Young Adult Book winner

lgmaxwell722's review against another edition

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2.0

Through poems and prose Gansworth provides and entryway into his life growing up raised at the Tuscarora Nation. I particularly liked the first and third sections which focused on coming of age. I felt some the connections were difficult to access, and some poems were a bit opaque in terms of their content. Although written for a teen audience I would also recommend this book to adults who are interested in learning about a world outside their own.

jwinchell's review against another edition

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4.0

5 stars for concept, 3 stars for execution of sometimes rambling poems that left me confused. This is a memoir in verse, mostly free verse, and it covers Gansworth’s 3 of 4 grandparents who went to Indian boarding schools and had their culture stripped from them, through his growing up years, into his adulthood as he moved off the Rez and became an elder. This is important: he is Onondaga and was raised in the Tuscarora nation, in upper NY state. There are many painstaking parallels to the Beatles, which Gansforth sets forth in the liner notes and that were mostly lost on me. He says this is written for young readers but I don’t see it. It feels like an adult memoir through and through, though he does spend a decent amount of time on the time he was 11.

thatlizhunter's review against another edition

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5.0

I must eventually get my own copy of this book. I listened to Apple: Skin to the Core on audiobook and it's narrated by the author and a devastatingly beautiful listen. But I do want to see the layout of the poetry and the illustrations I've heard are interspersed throughout the story.

This story is so important and heart achingly beautiful. A must read.