A fun historical story that follows a fictional family along their trip to Oregon. Inspired by a pioneer that brought fruit varieties to Oregon, the author provides an entertaining tale along the way, making the patriarch to be someone who worries more about his fruit trees than his children! The family (and the precious trees) face every hardship together in this tall tale. The pictures are just as fun as the descriptive words that contain references to apple varieties. ( )

This is the (slightly) true story of a family that traveled in a covered wagon from Salem Iowa to Milwaukee Oregon with fruit trees. The authors note at the end of the story does tell of the actual family that transported trees in a covered wagon. What a captivating history lesson! Each page is brightly colored and shows a struggle that the family encounters.

Apples to Oregon is a terrific historical fiction read for young readers. The story starts out with a little girl and her father explaining how they had to move to Oregon so her dad built apple trees, along with other fruit trees, to bring in a wagon. The little girl and her family had a lot of work to do to prepare for this long and unknown journey. They came across many barriers and challenges in this journey, including bringing their family and fruit trees across a long deep river (in which they had to build a raft for), wind storms, hail stones, drought, frosty cold nights, and discouraging crowds. Nevertheless, the little girl and her family endured through it all, resulting in reaching their final destination with their family and their blossoming fruit trees This was during the gold rush time, but their family was not concerned about gold, because to them, their fruit was their gold. It ended up making their family a fortune to live off of. This story was a "slightly true narrative" of a real family with eleven children and parents who did endure through these trials and yet did make it to Oregon with their fruit during the gold rush time period. The use of language also does an exceptional job of portraying the life of a pioneer family during this time and how their lives and values differ from that of society today. This provides great insight with children for making history interesting to learn about. ( )

A father decides to head west with his family and all of their saplings to Oregon. This book tells of the adventure of a family moving west with all of their stuff. This story is based on the true story of Henderson Luelling, his wife Elizabeth, and their 8 children who came across the plains from Iowa in 1947. They brought 700 fruit trees and plants, and settled in Milwaukie, Oregon and planted Oregon's first orchard. The story is fanciful, and fun, but does talk about the trail and the things that the pioneers experienced getting to Oregon.

Easily one of the funniest books I've read with kids all year. I read this to fourth graders in my school and in every class, no matter what the group makeup, they were all laughing as the father in this story utterly neglects his family in favor of protecting his plants on the journey west. Literary devices abound in here, but whether they dissect the text afterwards or not, kids are bound to take some enjoyment from reading this book. Wonderful story-great for reading aloud and use as a mentor text in a workshop setting. ( )