Title: The Year Money Grew On Trees
Author: Aaron Hawkins
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Books for Children
Release Date: September 6, 2010
ISBN: 978-0547279770
Size: 304 pages, 6×8, hardcover
Genre: Middle Grade (10 & up)
Jackson Jones is surrounded by 300 wild apple trees and he needs to make them grow apples — thousands and thousands of them. He convinces his sisters and cousins to help, but what do they know about pruning, irrigating or fertilizing? How can a group of kids fight killer frost and apple loving insects? And even assuming they can make the apples grow, how can they pick and sell enough of them in time?
With frostbitten fingers, stinking shoes, sunburns, and sore muscles, Jackson and his young crew unexpectantly discover the lost art of winging it — and have a year they will never forget.
With maps and spot illustrations of mechanical equipment and irrigation systems, and mathematical calculations of the great amount of money to be earned, this debut middle-grade novel evokes the adventure and can-do spirit from a time when parents allowed kids to figure things out for themselves.