Member Reviews
*received for free from netgalley for honest review* ngl thru me off when they didn't call it a sugar shack but really cute book, would buy for children
This is a fantastic Children's Book that features a grandfather teaching his two grandchildren how to make maple syrup.
The author is a resident of Maine, as is the Illustrator, and it shows. The illustrations show authentic maple syrup producing equipment, as well as highlighting some of the wild animals indigenous to Maine that are active in the winter months.
As a Canadian who lives close to multiple sugar shacks, I am familiar with the process of creating maple syrup and I was able to determine immediately that the Author knew her stuff.
I rate this book as 4.5 OUT OF 5 STARS ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Thank you to #NetGalley for providing me with a free copy of this illustrated Children's Book.
⭐⭐⭐⭐
Adorable children's book about how to make maple syrup. Filled with gorgeous illustrations and cute characters, and the book was in rhyme. Just adorable! This would make the perfect gift.
**ARC via NetGallley**
The illustrations in this book took my breath away! My kids and I will read this every weekend morning before we have pancakes or waffles for breakfast! It’s so fun while being informative that it really captivates my girl’s attention! I love the animals being mixed in as well!
This lovely, illustrated book was a great overview of how we get maple syrup. Love the illustrations also.
This is a lovely book with clear descriptions, great illustrations and a glossary to help with clarity. A good library resource for early grades.
#HowtoTapaMaple #NetGalley
Beautifully illustrated rhyming story of two children helping their grandfather gather sap for maple syrup, with a bonus describing the wild animals in the area.
Charmingly and realistically illustrated, this book walks the reader through the process of making maple syrup while celebrating the beauty of winter in Maine. And all in consistently metered and rhymed verse! It's a very cute book and I'd especially recommend this for city kids who may not know where maple syrup comes from.
Excellent book explaining how a family collects sap from maple trees in their orchard. Very detailed about the sap making process. I would love a Canadian edition.
How to Tap a Maple is an engaging rhyming explanation text showing the process of tapping maple trees to make syrup in North America. The techincal vocabulary and clear, interesting illustrations help readers to learn all about this fascinating activity.
It's hard to make these kind of stories well, but if the text and the illustrations work you get something which is informational and also entertaining. Here it works great, partly through the fact that the text tells a story but also has a rhyme scheme which makes it a children's poem as well as a school lesson on making syrup.
This is a sweet little book that tells kids in rhyme one way to tap trees and make maple syrup. Our family has tapped maple trees (and walnuts) for many years both as back yard amateurs and volunteering at a nearby nature camp and the ways described here are not the way we do it. The book describes a family that taps trees by hand and then boils down the sap in an evaporator. That is one way to do it, kind of the medium way between most amateurs and the professionals. We tap such small amounts in our family that we boil it down on the stove, which is not a method that's mentioned (and many don't because they don't want the humidity in their homes, which we don't mind in dry winter months). When we help at the nature center, we boil it down in big cast iron kettles over fires. Some people boil it down on camp stoves outside. Big maple syrup operations obviously use more sophisticated equipment. There are lots of ways to do it and this one mentions one, but if you have maples on your property and just want to tap your trees for a fun experience without investing in an evaporator and outbuilding, this won't give you the information you'll need. It's easy and I do recommend it, as it's great fun. This is a great book, but the title gave me the impression it was a how-to for backyard nature lovers and it is not that kind of book. It's still educational and fun.
I read a temporary digital ARC of this book for review.
What a read!! I never imagined what they do to produce such sweet-smelled yummy syrup, but now I know. In a short poetic way, with great illustrations, we are regaled with the story of making maple syrup. Far away in Canada on winter snow they are collected, boiled and bottled, then shipped all over the world so we can have a taste.
As someone very familiar with sugar shacks in Quebec (called "cabane a sucre in French), I was excited to share this book with my younger teen to get their take on it.
I didn't realize this book is for younger readers (more like early middle school and younger), and boasts beautiful rhyming text. For younger English readers interested in how maple syrup gets made - from choosing the right tree to deliciously enjoying the fruits of one's labour - this is a slam-dunk of a read.
I appreciated the glossary in the back matter, but would have liked a map showing where these trees grow naturally and/or where people tap maple trees in the world. I loved the artwork and enjoyed the discussion surrounding the animals that came to visit.
A perfect addition to a non-fiction section in a library, and possibly in a home with homeschoolers or kidlets interested in the origins of maple syrup.
Thanks NetGalley for this awesome early advance copy! My family has been tapping trees on our property for over ten years now. This was a fun story to share with my toddler who is almost ready to help drill the holes and set the spiles. My dad is also the leader of our sap adventures so this book was perfect for us. The rhyming text is always enjoyed and helpful as we embark on our learning to read adventure. The story wasn't too long or too short, but just right with lots of details. The glossary in the back was also a nice reference for all the terms used in the book. Looking forward to adding this book to our library when it is available!
From Sap to Syrup
I love children's books that teach nonfiction concepts through stories. This one does. Despite the title, it isn't just about how to tap a maple tree. Rather, it's about the maple syrup-making process, taking the reader from tapping the trees to enjoying the syrup. Grampy teaches his grandchildren how to tap the maple trees and turn the sap into syrup in his sugar shack. We see all the steps in the process, learning names for tools and the measurements. At the end of the story, the author provides an illustrated glossary of terms. If you have a child who loves maple syrup or is just interested in how things are made, she or he may enjoy this fascinating book about the making of maple syrup.
How to Tap a Maple tells you a story about a family that taps maple. One day the Grandpa take the children out to the maple trees. With wonderful pictures to show so much of this process, this book is really informative but interesting at the same time. At the end there is an information guide on tools and tree.
This is such a good book if you want to know about how maple syrup is made. This is also a wonderful book to show how families work together to help each other. The book even shows how the animals in the forest look around at the trees and help. From start to end, the young main character is shown that he is helpful throughout the whole process. This would be a great read aloud book in a classroom or just to have in your own home library.
Thanks for access to this book in exchange for honest feedback. I liked this book. I think that the illustrations were realistic, and the artist captured the text perfectly. The instructions and proccesses were clear. I liked that there was a glossary of tools and leaves (actually something I always thought I should read up on). I think the art was absolutely fantastic. I loved the realistic nature of the drawings, it's a welcomed difference compared to cartoons etc that usually appear in middle grade or young reader books.
Living in New England and seeing maple trees tapped for sugaring in my town, I figured this would be a fun book to check out! I loved how it was written in rhyming verse, and had a watercolor illustration style. It also had a nice sugaring vocabulary section at the end, and some facts about maple trees. This seems like a great book for lower-grade elementary school teachers to have in their classrooms!