Blog #3

Pumpkin Hill

Written by: Elizabeth Spurr

Illustrated by: Whitney Martin

Scholastic, Inc., 2006

29 pages

Fantasy

I chose this book because the season of Fall is here!  To get my students at practicum in the mindset of the season changing, I decided to read this book to them.  The book is the story of a single pumpkin, pumpkin seeds, and eventually a crop of pumpkins that grow and grow until they take over a town.  The story starts with a single pumpkin that grew on the top of a hill.  The pumpkin grew until it was too heavy and it fell down the hill into a field and exploded.  In the Spring, the seeds that were inside that pumpkin were scattered by a farmer across the whole field.  Pumpkins grew throughout that entire field, but no one came to gather them, so they rotted.  But the seeds remained and the next Spring a massive amount of pumpkins grew from the field. No one knew they were there so no one came to gather them.  One day a large wind came and blew them down the hill.  The pumpkins rolled and rolled into an orange avalanche until they crowded into the city.  There were too many pumpkins for the city, so the town made pies, jack-o-lanterns, and roasted pumpkin seeds to get rid of all the pumpkins.  At the end of the book are directions to growing your own pumpkin and also a recipe for roasted pumpkin seeds.

                The illustrations in Pumpkin Hill were drawn by Whitney Martin.  Martin used acrylic paints on Arches 140 hot press paper to create the artwork.  Martin created many scenes of fields, animals, people, and towns.  Her use of proportion and layout helps describe the text and also creates humor.  From a child’s perspective the illustrations perfectly describe the text written.  She used bright colors of orange, green, yellow, blue to portray the Fall season where the book is set.  Flipping through the book, I particularly notice all the smiling faces Martin used to describe the townspeople.

                This book is appropriate for all ages, but especially for older readers.  Young children should have this book read aloud to them, but it is appropriate for children grades third to sixth grade to read independently.  I would use this book in my elementary classroom to introduce the Fall season and also when teaching my class about the growth of plants.  The book is a great example of how seeds are planted and, with the correct ingredients, they grow into healthy plants.  Also, this book highlights Halloween.  I loved this book because it is silly and humorous.  Children would love listening to this story!  This book has no awards.