rachelb36's review against another edition
5.0
A very sweet story about an elderly woman, Rebecca Estelle; she hates pumpkins, but ends up with lots of them growing in her yard!
There are many lists in this book (all of the ingredients for pumpkin pie are given, for example) and repetition (all the ways Rebecca Estelle's family ate pumpkins growing up are shared). I also enjoyed the "hooks" on many pages, which kept the reader in suspense for a few seconds until the sentence was finished on the following page.
My nieces loved this one! (They're 7, 5 and 3.)
There are many lists in this book (all of the ingredients for pumpkin pie are given, for example) and repetition (all the ways Rebecca Estelle's family ate pumpkins growing up are shared). I also enjoyed the "hooks" on many pages, which kept the reader in suspense for a few seconds until the sentence was finished on the following page.
My nieces loved this one! (They're 7, 5 and 3.)
arefa's review against another edition
5.0
Rebecca Estelle hates pumpkins, but this year she ends up with a sea of pumpkins! So she has to find creative ways to get rid of all these pumpkins. She turns something she hates into a great thing that brings her community together. She even has a change of heart about pumpkins and saves some seeds to plant for next year! This is a wonderful story for a Fall or Halloween read aloud.
calistareads's review against another edition
5.0
We meet Rebecca who loves to garden. She grows a little of everything accept pumpkins; she hates pumpkins. (How dare she.) One day a pumpkin truck driving by has a pumpkin role off the truck. Well, Rebecca hates them so much she doesn’t want to touch them. So she buries it. The next spring vines begin to come up and she hacks it to pieces once and then she simply ignores it.
I do like the story in how the pumpkins become something that Rebecca loves and they bring community together. I thought this was a fantastic story. It really was. Any story with pumpkins starts out in the plus column for me.
The nephew didn’t think this was as good as I did. There were no monsters, blah blah. He didn’t relate to the old lady and he didn’t care. What does snot nose know anyway. haha, just kidding. Yeah, he didn’t like it and he gave this 1 star. I tickled him for a good 30 seconds after he said that - the little stinker. He still didn’t change his rating.
I do like the story in how the pumpkins become something that Rebecca loves and they bring community together. I thought this was a fantastic story. It really was. Any story with pumpkins starts out in the plus column for me.
The nephew didn’t think this was as good as I did. There were no monsters, blah blah. He didn’t relate to the old lady and he didn’t care. What does snot nose know anyway. haha, just kidding. Yeah, he didn’t like it and he gave this 1 star. I tickled him for a good 30 seconds after he said that - the little stinker. He still didn’t change his rating.
mrslibrary's review against another edition
3.0
Cute story...but a little long for my preschool niece. Although she asked for a second read...however she turned the pages as she tired of the story!
pussreboots's review against another edition
5.0
Too Many Pumpkins by Linda White was one of my wishlist books, and a rare picture book to have made it on the list. I typically only add longer books to the list. The how and why of this book being on the list is beyond my memory, but I'm glad it was.
The book opens with Rebecca Estelle gardening and watching with disdain as the pumpkin truck rumbles by. She detests pumpkins from her childhood where for a month she and her family had been forced to eating nothing but pumpkin dishes when money was tight. Things go amiss when a large pumpkin rolls off the truck and smashes to pieces at the side of Rebecca's yard.
My children and I know from experience just how easily pumpkins can grow. We had one take root in our composter one year and spread pumpkin vines all over our balcony garden. We even got a couple tiny pumpkins for all its effort.
So immediately both kids could guess where the story was going. Rebecca Estelle having a nice yard and garden has unwittingly provided the perfect place for a wayward pumpkin to take root. Everything she does to avoid having pumpkins grow in her yard only makes things "worse."
In the end Rebecca Estelle learns to come to terms with pumpkins, though she still doesn't want to eat them. They do, however, provide a way for her to reconnect with her community.
The illustrations that accompany the story are wonderful and take the "too many" to its logical extremes. There are pumpkins in a rocking chair, on the porch, and in all sorts of other unusual places. It's worth stopping to take it all in and to talk about all the places pumpkins could end up growing.
The book opens with Rebecca Estelle gardening and watching with disdain as the pumpkin truck rumbles by. She detests pumpkins from her childhood where for a month she and her family had been forced to eating nothing but pumpkin dishes when money was tight. Things go amiss when a large pumpkin rolls off the truck and smashes to pieces at the side of Rebecca's yard.
My children and I know from experience just how easily pumpkins can grow. We had one take root in our composter one year and spread pumpkin vines all over our balcony garden. We even got a couple tiny pumpkins for all its effort.
So immediately both kids could guess where the story was going. Rebecca Estelle having a nice yard and garden has unwittingly provided the perfect place for a wayward pumpkin to take root. Everything she does to avoid having pumpkins grow in her yard only makes things "worse."
In the end Rebecca Estelle learns to come to terms with pumpkins, though she still doesn't want to eat them. They do, however, provide a way for her to reconnect with her community.
The illustrations that accompany the story are wonderful and take the "too many" to its logical extremes. There are pumpkins in a rocking chair, on the porch, and in all sorts of other unusual places. It's worth stopping to take it all in and to talk about all the places pumpkins could end up growing.
jodie_saint's review against another edition
3.0
Where there are books with food involved, there I shall be also (reading). This is a classic. It's probably a little too wordy for younger kids, but great for everyone else. I liked that it promotes a message of how it's okay to change your mind about something, or make something good out of things you don't like. If you like a cheerful Halloween or Thanksgiving story, this is the book for you!