Review by Booklist Review
Ages 4^-7. Rebecca Estelle hates pumpkins. As a poor child, she ate them all the time. The last thing she wants to do is grow them; but a huge pumpkin falls off a truck, spilling its seeds, and the next fall, she has pumpkins. Lots of them. The fun comes in watching this sprightly woman deal with her orange nemesis. She decides she'd better bake, and so she does until her kitchen is packed with pumpkin pies, bread, puddings, muffins--then she has to get the goodies out of her house. She carves the rest of the pumpkins into jack-o'-lanterns that light the way for the neighbors. Soon everything is gone except for a few pumpkin seeds, which Rebecca Estelle decides to plant after all. The story and art brim with life and laughter, just as the kitchen spills over with treats. Rebecca Estelle comes across as very real: cranky, generous, and willing to make the best of a bad situation. An excellent fall read-aloud. --Ilene Cooper
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by School Library Journal Review
PreS-Gr 3Linda White's sweet story about an older woman facing a pumpkin crisis (Holiday House, 1996) receives appropriate treatment here. Rebecca Estelle has hated pumpkins ever since she was a little girl and had only pumpkins to eat. Now she refuses to plant any in her garden, and won't even look at them. When a pumpkin falls off a truck, she buries the pieces out of sight. When the seeds sprout she tries to stop them, but to no avail. Eventually she winds up with a front yard teeming with the dreaded orange orbs. A little creative thinking, and her unwelcome pumpkins become welcome treats for friends and neighbors. The male narrator's voice is clear and crisp, providing individual voices for each character. Megan Lloyd's lovely, glowing illustrations are up to the iconographic scanning, which reveals delightful details casual reader's might miss. Good for autumn viewing, this is a nicely-done package that children will enjoy any time of year.Teresa Bateman, Brigadoon Elementary School, Federal Way, WA (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Horn Book Review
When an enormous pumpkin falls off a truck and smashes onto Rebecca Estelle's lawn, she buries it and determines to ignore it, because she hates pumpkins. In order to get rid of the huge crop of pumpkins that eventually sprouts up, she transforms them into pies, tarts, muffins, and cakes and lures the neighbors into her lonely home with a glowing field of jack-o'-lanterns. Warm, inviting illustrations fill the pages of this autumn story. From HORN BOOK 1996, (c) Copyright 2010. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review
When Rebecca Estelle was a little girl, money was scarce. Once for an entire month her family had nothing to eat but pumpkins, so Rebecca Estelle never wants to look at a pumpkin again. Every year while she tends her garden, she simply turns her back on the pumpkin truck as it rumbles by. When a pumpkin falls off the truck into her yard and smashes, she covers it with dirt and tries not to think about it, but by the next year, pumpkin vines have taken root. She resolutely ignores them all summer, but in the fall there are so many pumpkins in her front yard, she can ignore them no longer. Her creative solution makes a fine harvest and Halloween story. White's story features a perfectly plucky individual in Rebecca Estelle, and the detailed line and watercolor illustrations pick up the story and run with it. Lloyd (who illustrated Carolyn Otto's What Color is Camouflage?, p. 1240) gives Rebecca Estelle a fine old brick house with a ramble of garden sheds and chicken coops out back. Esmeralda, the heroine's sidekick cat, provides a particularly expressive counterpoint in almost every picture. (Picture book. 4-8)
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
