The Last Apple Tree
by Claudia Mills
Intermediate, Middle School    Ferguson/Holiday    272 pp.
6/24    9780823457106    $17.99
e-book ed.  9780823459339    $10.99

Seventh graders Sonnet and Zeke are neighbors who hardly know each other; even the few well-intended interactions they have dissolve into misunderstanding. Both are lonely and struggle with complicated situations at home. Sonnet and her lively little sister, Villanelle, have just moved to town with their mom to live with their grandfather after their grandmother’s death. Sonnet spends considerable energy trying to keep everyone from feeling the sadness permeating their home. Meanwhile, after years of homeschooling with his zealous, overbearing father, Zeke has started public school, where he feels self-conscious about his lack of a cellphone, television, or video game console. Told in third person with alternating perspectives, the story allows readers to see how Sonnet and Zeke feel inside compared with the effect their words and actions have. Sonnet’s mother is a poet, and interspersed throughout are contextual poems from the perspective of the last apple tree on Sonnet’s grandfather’s property. Trees, and this tree in particular, play a pivotal role in the past, present, and future of the characters and their emotional well-being. Each complex and well-meaning character suffers personal challenges and tragedies on their own, which leads to confusion, dishonesty, and further isolation. As tensions build, the characters are cornered into finally being true to one another, and they discover understanding, compassion, and release.

From the July/August 2024 issue of The Horn Book Magazine.