The Extra Tree

Little Ashby has an orchard with twenty-four trees, twenty-four green labels and six rules on the gate. One of them says strays come out. Then ten-year-old Nell, the new girl who counts everything, finds a twenty-fifth tree with no label at all.
Nobody planted it. Nobody knows what it will taste like. And Mr. Hobday, who looks after the orchard, cannot remember why the rule was ever written.

The story is told in ten short chapters by different people: Nell, Mr. Hobday, a baker, a six-year-old who wears his wellies on the wrong feet, a bus driver tangled in netting, a retired teacher, and one very old tree. At the top of each chapter is a page from Nell's notebook with a number on it. Watch the number. It does not always go up when you expect.

Warm, funny and quietly surprising, this is a story for readers of about 7 to 12, to read alone or aloud. It has no villains and no scary parts. It asks a question with no right answer: what will you keep exactly as it is, and what will you give a look before you decide?

It began with one idea: something familiar can still surprise us when we look at it again. Almost everyone knows the apple. Fewer people know the strange and true things hidden inside it, and the story lets its characters find them out naturally, one chapter at a time. It suits families who like a book to talk about afterwards, and classrooms that want a story for science, writing and kindness together.

The book includes a note for whoever reads along, questions to talk about, and few facts about the Bramley apple.

Give them the gift of imagination that grows with them.