Apple Bough by Noel Streatfeild
Published 1999 · 256 pages · 70,400 words · about 3 hours at an average pace · Children's Literature, Coming-of-Age
How hard is Apple Bough to read?
Apple Bough scores 20 out of 100 for difficulty on ReadingRate, making it relatively accessible. The score is a weighted composite of nine measures: four of how hard the prose is to parse, five of how hard the meaning is to extract.
- Vocabulary: 22 out of 100
- A children's novel in the Puffin list, written for young readers in clear mid-century English. Its musical and travel settings suggest simple, accessible words, closer to Judy Blume's young adult register than to anything ornate.
- Sentence structure: 24 out of 100
- Streatfeild's family stories for children use plain, direct sentences. The syntax sits near the level of Anne Frank's diary rather than adult literary fiction.
- Abstraction: 26 out of 100
- The story centers on a family, a house, a tour and a wish to go home. Those concrete concerns put it near Judy Blume's coming-of-age questions.
- Information density: 22 out of 100
- Readers say the book has little plot and rests on affection for the family. With about 70,000 words and a gentle pace, it is light going, comparable to Beach Read in comfort.
- Narrative indirection: 22 out of 100
- Children's family fiction of this kind states feelings and goals openly. Myra's "Operation Home" is a plain, stated aim, so readers infer little.
- Symbolic density: 22 out of 100
- The house called Apple Bough works as a straightforward emblem of home and belonging. Beyond that, the evidence points to a literal story with minimal symbolic layering.
- Ironic distance: 12 out of 100
- Reviewers praise the warmth of the family and the sincerity of the telling. The voice is earnest, like Judy Blume's sincere adolescent narration.
- Resolution withholding: 18 out of 100
- The plot is driven by the children's wish to return home, which suggests a settled, comforting resolution in the manner of a genre-expected happy ending.
- Structural complexity: 20 out of 100
- The tour moves from country to country and ends in California, which implies a linear, travel-driven structure. Nothing suggests timeline games or shifting narrators, so it sits near Anne Frank's linear diary.
How Apple Bough is regarded
Apple Bough holds a literary regard score of 33 out of 100, weighing its place in the canon, its critical reception, its influence on other writers, and the standing of its author. Regard is measured separately from difficulty: a demanding book is not necessarily an admired one.