Jamie plants a pumpkin seed in the spring in this seasonal picture book for younger children, watching it grow into a pumpkin plant, then flower, and then produce an actual pumpkin, as summer and then autumn come. When it is Halloween time, he carves the now massive pumpkin into a jack-o-lantern, saving some of the seeds he scooped out of it to plant next year...

Originally published in 1986, Pumpkin, Pumpkin is the first picture book I have read from author/illustrator Jeanne Titherington, whose beautiful colored pencil artwork really enhanced the experience. The text is very simple—no more than a sentence or phrase per two-page spread—describing the seasonal rhythms of a growing pumpkin, while the artwork captures the beauty of the natural world (it looks like a farm) in which Jamie lives. I particularly liked the various animals with which Jamie interacts, as he watches his pumpkin grow. Recommended to younger picture book readers and audiences—kindergarten and below, I would say—looking for pumpkin-centered tales for autumn. ( )

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In the spring, Jamie plants a pumpkin seed. He watches all summer as the pumpkin grows and grows. In the fall, it is big enough to make a perfect Halloween jack-o’-lantern. But what will Jamie find inside the pumpkin?

The target audience for this charming picture book is preschool through primary grades, ages four through eight. The exquisite colored pencil illustrations are a highlight of this book. With their childlike innocence, they are sure to delight the young reader. The engaging illustrations are a perfect counterpart to the narrative as they clearly represent the simple science of planting seeds, watching them grow, and deciding when to harvest.

With its simple, repetitive narrative, this picture book is perfect for emerging readers. Picture clues help in decoding words while the narrative’s repetition builds confidence as the child reads.

Highly recommended for all young readers, especially emerging readers. Also recommended for autumn storytelling, for an introduction to the science of sowing seeds and growing plants [for which it won a New York Academy of Science Children’s Book Award], or for the beautiful artwork. This is a book that belongs in every primary grade classroom library. ( )

Pumpkin Pumpkin is a very short simple story about a boy who planted a pumpkin seed in the spring and watched it grow. I would use it for kindergarten. It uses a lot of great scientific language that you can use to introduce topics to your students, like sprout and pulp and talks about the life cycle of the pumpkin plant. This could be a great way to introduce the vocabulary to your students and even have them read along with it because it uses simple language and repeats words a lot. I would do a lesson on planting a seed and watching it grow or even read this and have students draw the life cycle themselves before we carve a pumpkin and play with the seeds and pulp together in class so it is a hands on experience as well. ( )

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