About the Author

SHMUEL THALER lives in Santa Cruz, California.


Bread lover GEORGE LEVENSON's films, which include the widely praised Sadako and The Thousand Paper Cranes, are available in most schools and libraries in North America. This story was inspired by the wheatgrass growing in his backyard in Santa Cruz, California.

Reviews

K-Gr 2-The development of a pumpkin seed into a plant, pumpkin, jack-o'-lantern, and, completing the circle, back to seed again, is the subject of this colorful book. Photos show a child sitting on a huge mound of pumpkins, a magnified view of the inside of the fruit with its pulp and seeds, tendrils of a plant stretching across two pages, a Georgia O'Keeffe-like view into the center of a blossom, and the lighted grin of a beautiful jack-o'-lantern. Unfortunately, the text is written in badly rhyming verse: "One big pumpkin family, five varieties,/each one started from/different pumpkin seeds." Straightforward directions for growing pumpkins appear on the last page. Jeanne Titherington's Pumpkin, Pumpkin (Greenwillow, 1986) is less flashy, more artistic, and more appealing to young listeners.-Carolyn Jenks, First Parish Unitarian Church, Portland, ME Copyright 1999 Cahners Business Information.