Author: Bea Elias
Illustrator: Virvalle Carvallo

The Magic Apples is the first in The Encanto’s Village series. It tells a story about a lonely princess who wants a friend, and the importance of being polite.

The Magic Apples by Bea Elias inner page

The story itself is not original, it’s definitely a retelling of a fairy tale where the two older brothers are entitled and the youngest son is the hero. With regard to the goblin who questioned the youths, I get that his role was to test the youths in regards to their manners but I don’t know what we are supposed to learn from it. You get thrown in jail if you aren’t polite? (By the way, their behavior directly conflicts with a statement from the beginning of the story that all the villagers were kind to each other.)

The layout of the story was a bit choppy. The princess wanted to get out of the castle. The king decides to have one “worthy” questor spend one afternoon with the princess and he thinks that will solve her loneliness?

I wasn’t a fan that the request to hunt for apples was only opened up to the boys of the village. Why not the girls as well? I get that it’s an old fable, but this would have been a prime example of how to flip the gender switch and give this tale some equality.

There are some editing and grammar issues throughout the book. As for the font used, the script was slightly difficult to read and I didn’t like that all the names were in bold every time a name was mentioned. Speaking of names, it was a little confusing for my kids when the name for Victor would switch to his nickname Peche. They had trouble keeping names straight.

Finally, I didn’t like that Lidia and Victor were immediately best friends after he gave her the apples. I feel that sets an unreal expectation about friendship to kids. I have to say, though, my kids didn’t have any qualms about that part of the story at all, they just accepted it as normal.

I really liked the graphics for this book. The colors are saturated and the details are plentiful. I’m a little torn about the graphics only in that they look a little anime and the story has a Central American feel. On the other hand, if we’re aiming for ethnicity-blind graphics, style choice shouldn’t be an issue.

Am I sorry I read it? No. No, I am not. It’s not a long book and I like to read different stories to the kids so I’m not reading the same one over and over again. Will I read this one again? Probably not.

The Magic Apples is a retelling of an old story. While kids will like the colorful characters, adults might have a difficult time with the things I’ve mentioned above.