The Year Money Grew on Trees

"We’re always told that money doesn’t grow on trees, but in this book it does. The main character is a boy and he’s got some siblings and cousins whom he recruits into helping him get an apple orchard ready for harvest. It’s not his orchard; it belongs to their cranky next-door neighbour, and she says she will let him have it if he can produce a harvest and sell it for a certain amount of money. He’s sucked into this deal and he realises quickly that he doesn’t know the first thing about pruning trees, or harvesting apples. It’s this whole adventure about how to grow apples. There’s a lot of humour in the book, which is one of the two main reasons I liked it so much. But it’s also very informative about what it takes to grow apples. The economics here is about the natural resources but also about the marketing of the apples. There’s also a whole chapter where the kids are trying to decide how to sell the apples, where to sell them and how much to sell them for. There’s another chapter about the cost of all the inputs, how they’re racking up this charge account and it’s all being charged to the father. So there’s a ton of economics involved but it’s another very entertaining book. There is quite a bit of that, including a technical drawing. This is one book you’ll want to read for sure."