Stephanie Deutsch
In lively, image-rich language, Delicious tells of rafting the baby trees across a perilous river; protecting them from wind and hail with skirts, bonnets and petticoats; finding water for them in an old boot; and fanning away Jack Frost with smoke from a campfire. Nancy Carpenter's bright illustrations capture the exuberant spirit and the humor as well as many details.
— The New York Times
Kirkus Reviews
The subtitle ("Being the [Slightly] True Narrative of How a Brave Pioneer Father Brought Apples, Peaches, Pears, Plums, Grapes, and Cherries [and Children] Across the Plains") sets the tone and describes the plot, but the flavor is in the folksy telling of this clever tall tale that humorously portrays a family's trek west from Iowa to Oregon to plant their father's fruit trees. His oldest daughter, Delicious, regales readers with her accounts of the many hazards and risks the family faces (eight children and mama) as they rescue Daddy's darlings, the young trees, from drowning in a river crossing, being pounded by hailstones, withering by drought, and then freezing by Jack Frost. Carpenter's illustrations paint hilarious touches, such as the scene where they use their clothing to protect the plants from hail, including Daddy's underwear. Endpaper maps trace their journey and the author's note states that the story is loosely based on a real pioneer, Henderson Luelling. The pun-filled text and puckish pictures by the team that created Fannie in the Kitchen (2001) spin a pip of a yarn that is just downright delicious. (Picture book. 4-8)
JUN/JUL 06 - AudioFile
Johhny Appleseed would be proud of young Delicious and her family's efforts to take "Daddy's dainties" and "precious darlings" all the way to the sweet dirt of Oregon. Apple expressions, references, and imagery abound as this flamboyant family ventures across river and desert, surviving wind, hail, and frost with a wagonload of apple seedlings. Jessica Almasy's understated exaggeration underscores the tall-tale fun of this "daring adventure in fruit." She gives equal weight to Daddy's earnest pleas for Delicious's aid and the preposterous notions of a river "muddier than a cowboy's toenails" and the "nightly crooning to the Gravensteins." Be ready for some outrageous fun! A.R. © AudioFile 2006, Portland, Maine
