Golden Apples

Dr. Ketch (Armen Ketchedjian)
Parental Interventional Tools (2007)
ISBN 9780977827404
Reviewed by Ben Weldon (age 10) for Reader Views (11/07)


In “Golden Apples,” all is not well in the Kingdom of Avanta when Queen Zabora falls ill with a mysterious and grave illness.  Her survival depends upon one of her three children retrieving a golden apple from the Garden of Knowledge.  Boris, the conceited eldest son, jumped upon his horse and headed at once for the Garden of Knowledge.  On his way, he came upon a group of people and asked directions to the Garden.  The leader of the group told him that he would need to eat some special colorful crystals in order to have the power to safely enter the Garden.  In exchange for the crystals, he was forced to give his valuable golden sword.  He felt stronger after eating the crystals, and he went on his way.  When he ran out of crystals, he started to feel weak and sick and had to turn his horse around and return home.  When he returned home, his sister Princess Viana attempted the quest.  She, too, met the group of people, took the magic crystals but then fell terribly ill when the crystals ran out.  Will the courageous youngest brother Garth succeed in saving his mother and now his ailing siblings, too?
    
Although this story is a classic fairytale, “Golden Apples” delivers the present-day message of how important it is to stay away from illegal drugs.   A must-read statement at the beginning of the book describes the author’s experience as a doctor treating drug-addicted children and how that motivated him to write a book about the dangerous consequences of using drugs.  This book makes me aware of how dangerous drugs can be.   I think this book would be a useful tool to parents who want to talk to their children about the dangers of drug use.  Kids will also find this an appealing fairytale with brightly colored pictures to go along with the story.  See how many times you can find wise man’s gray wolf hiding in the background of the illustrations. 

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