The two youngest children, Robert and Martha, are the most sympathetic characters in the book and their futures are determined by one awful day in the orchard. I liked the fact "The Last Runaway" was set in the US (where Tracy originates from) but found it very slight, although I enjoyed the details of quilting. SPOILER ALERT- Tragedy strikes, his son leaves and shifts aimlessly around the west, while the family dies off like untended saplings. We are though, taken back to Black Swamp and it is eventually revealed why Robert left Ohio and the family's apple farm.

A man looks at portrait photos by US photographer Bruce Gilden in the exhibition 'Masters of Photography' at the photokina in Cologne, Germany. My primary complaints with this novel are the characters were flat and stereotypical and the story dragged for the first two-thirds of the novel. James and Sadie can't agree on which type of tree to raise, where to grow them, or even if they should continue to grow them. If they can nuture enough trees to satisfy the authorities, then they can claim the land, and James Goodenough's legacy will remain.

It was also a bit longer than some - I do find that, although beautifully written, the brevity of some of the books is a bit frustrating.

Sadie is a drunk who is determined that James will plant more 'spitters' than 'eaters', she longs for the escape that a bottle of applejack brings, and constantly taunts her husband, and is cruel to her children. In Cali, it's Redwoods and Giant Sequioas, but he still dreams of the eating apples his father grew. When I read the Acknowledgements, I found that Lobb and Veitch are real people and that there are real places and events that took place in California and England.While this story is about their family life through the years, and apples are at the core (no pun intended) it becomes the story of Robert, the son, who shares the same passion as his father, for apples.

There are so many things that happen throughout the course of the story that are tragic or sad or just plain awful.It is here in this section on Robert that I got a sense of the history that Chevalier skillfully depicts . The next part of the story tells of his life travelling America, picking up various jobs just to exist and being part of the California Gold Rush for a time.

I loved it' Joanne Harris In 1830s Ohio, the Goodenough family barely scratch out a living in the inhospitable Black Swamp. Fifteen years later their youngest son, Robert, is drifting through Gold Rush California and haunted by the broken family he fled years earlier. Mark Bramhall, Hillary Huber, Kirby Heyborne, and Cassandra Morris just nailed their parts beautifully.Whether is is Mary Anning, discovering fossils on the beach in the early 1800s (Remarkable Creatures, 2010), or Griet the young Dutch girl who became the model for the artist Vermeer (Girl With A Pearl Earring, 2001), this author's writing always captivates me. In that it more than succeeds, though the unstable force here is more the mother, Sadie Goodenough, than the father, James. Robert and his sister Martha must watch as their parents' marriage is torn apart by disputes over whether to grow sweet apples to eat or sour apples for cider and applejack.