What Would You Do with Too Many Pumpkins?
It was Leslie, our neighborhood librarian, who first introduced me to Too Many Pumpkins, the delightful children's tale of a woman who so detested pumpkins, that when pumpkin vines began growing in her front yard, she simply refused to look out the front window and stopped using the front door.
Though it was years ago, my daughter was small and we had stopped into the library for story time, I can still hear Leslie's voice as she read about Rebecca Estelle, who one fall day found herself with a sea of pumpkins and had to think of a way to get rid of them all.
She scooped the slimy seeds out of the pumpkins and cut away the shells. After she boiled the pumpkin meat, she mixed it with eggs, milk, sugar, flour, cinnamon, nutmeg, and cloves to make rich pies. Then Rebecca Estelle made pumpkin tarts, pumpkin muffins, pumpkins cakes. Pumpkin bread, pumpkin pudding, pumpkin cookies, until. . .
. . .pumpkin dishes spilled out of every cupboard, drawer, and cubbyhole, and the seeds were a mountain in the corner.
I love reading about food, not just cookbooks, but food memoirs, food essays, and children's books that give food a starring role. Fortunately my daughter does too. Now ten, she still insists on reading Too Many Pumpkins as we near Halloween. Maybe this year we'll try making a few of Rebecca Estelle's pumpkin treats too.
Too Many Pumpkins, Linda White, Scholastic, 2004
--Tracy Schneider
console xbox 360 on September 28, 2009 at 09:40 PM
I loved this book! It was absolutely adorable and I will read it every year at the start of autumn. Both adults and children will love this story with its cozy pictures. In addition, it teaches us a valuable lesson about positivity and friendship.