One Green Apple By: Eve Bunting

Farah is a girl is on her first field trip with her new school in her new country. Farah doesn’t speak English. She says she looks like the other students with her shirt and pants except she wears a dupatta (head covering). A girl from her class sits next to her on the wagon. That girl points to herself and said “Anna”. Then she points to Farah and said “Farah”. Farah thinks that Anna must be this girl’s name. The wagon gets to a bunch of apple trees and her teacher points to an apple and says “one”. Farah takes a green apple from a very small tree that didn’t look exactly like the rest. When her classmates all placed their apples into a machine, she does too but her teacher gives her a look because her apple is green and the rest of the apples were red. Her classmates push and pull the lever to crush the apples Anna calls Farah over to help. The machine made apple cider and the whole class drank some, Farah likes it. On the wagon Anna sits next to her again and a boy named Jim sits on her other side. Jim burps during the ride and they all laughed. Farah realizes that burps and laughing are the same in her home country as they were here. She was happy about that. Then Farah says “apple” which was her first word she spoke in English. Anna clapped and cheered. Farah realizes that eventually she will fit into her new country just like her little green apple fit in with the red ones for the cider.