The Biggest Pumpkin Reviews

Praise for The Biggest Pumpkin!

From Booklist

Young Gavin is determined to grow “the biggest pumpkin!” He recruits help from the garden-shop owner, who gives him the perfect seeds to start with; his green-thumbed neighbor, who helps him build a tiny greenhouse around the seedling when it first pokes out of the ground; the mailman, who shows him how to hand-pollinate the flowers; his neighbor Colby, who helps pick the biggest of the three baby pumpkins to focus on; his aunt Daisy, who shares her secret fertilizer recipe; and finally his uncle Peter, who hoists the 501-pound pumpkin onto the bed of his pickup with a forklift. The cut-paper illustrations add plenty of whimsical texture to Gavin’s big quest, particularly the gargantuan pumpkin he finally enters in the contest. Spunky Gavin is determined from the very start, and his enthusiasm, demonstrated in the repeated refrain of “I’m growing the biggest pumpkin!” is nicely coupled with factual information about pumpkin cultivation. An educational and entertaining harvest-time read-aloud. — Annie Miller

From the Midwest Book Review

Sandra Horning’s THE BIGGEST PUMPKIN receives fun drawings by Holly Stone-Barker and uses the experiences of one young gardener to explore the process of planting and caring for a growing vegetable. It blends nonfiction facts with fiction as it presents the learning process of young Gavin, who grows his own pumpkin with much community support. Good reading skills or parental read-aloud will lend to this engrossing tale.