THE GRAVITY TREE

All about the apple that (contrary to legend) did not hit Isaac Newton’s head in the mid-17th century—and what became of the tree from which it fell.

The apple may have missed, but the insight into why it fell down instead of, say, up struck the young genius hard enough to revolutionize our understanding of how the physical universe works…and to turn the tree into a destination for generations of pilgrims. As Redding relates with alliterative vim, the tree survived a lightning strike around 1820, though pieces of it were carved into a chair—“a perfect perch for pondering”—and, much later, carried onto the International Space Station. It still produces fruit to this day, sending offspring to grow around the world. In the wake of illustrating Nancy I. Sanders’ The Very Oldest Pear Tree (2020), Imamura portrays the tree from first tiny seed to gnarled snag, inspiring visitors from Albert Einstein in 1930 to Stephen Hawking in his wheelchair in 1987. As the centuries pass, racially diverse background characters begin to diversify the mostly White cast…and on the final page, a brown-skinned child stands in for readers with, the author writes, a similar “potential to change the world.” (This book was reviewed digitally.)

A sweet windfall of history and inspiration.