• 3 months ago
Golden Delicious: A Cinderella Apple Story, by Anna Egan Smucker, is a wonderful kid's book read aloud for preschool, kindergarten, and elementary school ages (and adults still young at heart), about the history of the Golden Delicious apple for the Autumn / Fall season.

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Transcript
00:00Golden
00:27Delicious A Cinderella Apple Story by Anna Egan Smucker, illustrated by Kathleen Kemley.
00:37It was apple season in the fall of 1905, and the Stark Brothers Nursery in Louisiana, Missouri
00:44was flooded with apples.
00:46They were sent by farmers who hoped they had grown the world's best new apple, one the
00:52Stark Brothers would want to sell to all their customers.
00:59I feel like the prince who tried a glass slipper on one smelly foot after another to find Cinderella,
01:06Paul Stark said to his brother Lloyd.
01:09Paul had just tasted another disappointing apple that sure had looked like royalty.
01:18But all those disappointments didn't stop the Stark Brothers from dreaming about finding
01:23the perfect apple, one that could be crowned queen of the apple world and bring them fame
01:29and fortune.
01:32Meanwhile, miles and miles away in the hills of West Virginia, Anderson Mullins was inspecting
01:41his new farm.
01:42It had been a hot summer and everything was dry as dust.
01:46He hadn't reckoned on coming face to face with a miracle.
01:51There in the midst of his dried up apple orchard was a glorious green leaf tree, its branches
01:57loaded with shining golden apples.
02:00He snapped one off and took a bite.
02:03Never had he tasted an apple so sweet, so juicy, so delicious.
02:12For the next eight years, during wet seasons and dry seasons, Anderson Mullins' tree produced
02:19bushels and bushels of those golden apples.
02:23Every time he entered them in the Clay County Fair, they won blue ribbons.
02:28Each year, his tree produced fruit when other trees didn't.
02:32Come springtime, when the other apples that had been in his fruit cellar all winter were
02:37wrinkly and dried out, his golden apples were still fresh and sweet.
02:42He was sure they were like no other apples in the whole wide world.
02:49So in the spring of 1914, Anderson Mullins searched his fruit cellar for the three most
02:56perfect golden apples he could find and sent them to the Stark Brothers' nursery.
03:01He knew the Starks were always on the lookout for new and better kinds of fruit and he was
03:06hoping for some extra dollars in his pocket.
03:12By and by, the apples arrived.
03:15Mullins' yellow seedling samples, Paul Stark read, blowing sawdust off the card.
03:21Don't waste your time on them, his brother Lloyd muttered.
03:25Yellow apples don't sell.
03:26Tough skin, bland taste, they don't keep well.
03:30But Paul had just bitten into a slice.
03:33Lloyd, Lloyd, he yelled, and he shoved a piece in his brother's mouth.
03:38Taste, taste this.
03:44Mm, juicy, said Lloyd.
03:48Crisp and spicy, said Paul, even though it's at least six months old.
03:54This can't be a yellow apple, Lloyd exclaimed.
03:57It's not, said Paul, his smile bigger than a giant slice of watermelon.
04:02It's not a yellow apple, it's a golden apple.
04:07This just might be our Cinderella, shouted Lloyd.
04:14Paul Stark found it hard to wait till the next apple harvest season.
04:18When fall finally came, he traveled hundreds of miles to see that golden apple tree.
04:25First by train and then by horseback over winding mountain roads, he reached Odessa,
04:30West Virginia.
04:32The sun poured down hot as apple butter just out of the kettle.
04:36His white shirt stuck to him tighter than the skin on a grape, but he didn't care.
04:44At last, on a dusty country road along Porter's Creek near Odessa, Paul saw a mailbox that
04:50said A.H. Mullins.
04:53He knew his journey was almost at an end.
04:57No one answered when he knocked on the door, so he set out on his own to find Mullins'
05:01orchard and its extraordinary tree.
05:09Paul wasn't used to hills as steep as those in Clay County, West Virginia.
05:13Sweating and gasping for breath, he climbed and climbed.
05:18At first, he found only some scraggly old trees, but then he saw it.
05:23A tree with rich green leaves, its branches bent to the ground with the weight of a great
05:28crop of gorgeous glowing golden apples.
05:31Paul couldn't help himself.
05:33It was as if his hand reached out by itself and plucked one.
05:40He was biting into it when a farmer came striding down the hill toward him.
05:45"'My name's Paul Stark,' Paul told the farmer.
05:48"'That's some apple!'
05:49"'Name's Mullins,' the farmer said.
05:52"'I sent you some.'
05:53"'I know,' Paul said.
05:55"'And I'd like to buy that tree from you.'
05:58So the two men put their heads together and agreed on a price.
06:06Paul Stark hired workmen to build a cage to protect the tree from animals and thieves.
06:12He even ordered a wire strung from the locked cage to a battery-powered burglar alarm in
06:18Anderson Mullins' kitchen.
06:20When Paul Stark left Mullins' farm, he took a bundle of twigs from the golden apple tree
06:25with him.
06:27In early spring, those twigs were grafted onto some of the Stark brothers' apple trees,
06:32cut into the stems and wrapped tight so the two would grow together.
06:37Paul and Lloyd watched over them as if those grafted trees were hens getting ready to lay
06:42golden eggs.
06:47Those young trees grew quickly, and it wasn't long before beautiful golden apples filled
06:53their branches.
06:58And what did Paul and Lloyd Stark name their apples?
07:02That was easy!
07:03Golden Delicious!
07:05In 1919, Golden Delicious won a medal for the world's best new apple.
07:11You might say it was crowned queen, queen of the apple world!
07:20I hope you enjoyed that story.
07:22If you would like to see these books uploaded daily, go ahead and subscribe, and don't forget
07:26to check out all the other stories that are already uploaded.
07:29Thank you so much for watching!

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