Welcome to Litsy!

Despite racist elements consistent with the time it was written (1915), this book has many beautifully written passages. It‘s more of a fictional hagiography of a folk hero as opposed to a clear biography of a real man named John Chapman.

I was enthralled by the story of the folk hero as a child, inspired by the idea of a person who loved the natural, human and animal worlds.

I‘ve included a link to some facts about Chapman‘s life below. 👇

Johnny Appleseed seemed to respect and have good relationships with American Indian groups. (I‘ll look into this more thoroughly on non-fiction sites).

However, this book WAS written in 1915 and is full of an undercurrent of white supremacy. It is of its time, with passages like the one above where a Chief is separating from his child admonishing her to “Grow up white.”

Older literature can be problematic for this reason.

“Trees had become to him sentient and beneficent things, drawing their life from the same Mother Earth that supported himself, and reaching up with love and trust to the same kind sky. So, although birds flitted about in shabby coats, silent and unseen, and animals fed in secret places on nature‘s abundance, he was companioned on the day march and the night watch by the trees, statuesque and serene.”

This book reminds me of books I would have read in primary school in America in the 1980s.

Originally published in 1915 (my copy is from 1943), it‘s beautifully bound & illustrated, & incredibly earnest! If a character is good then they are very, very good.

Johnny Appleseed always enchanted me as a child, and as I learned more about him he seemed to me like a man ahead of his time. I‘ll finish this fictionalised account, then check the facts.