Night of the Pumpkinheads

by Michael J. Rosen, Hugh McMahon

A group of restless pumpkinheads are tired of spending every Halloween sitting on the porch while all the kids get to dress up and go trick-or-treating. This year, the pumpkins magnificently transform into fearsome Frankenstein, the Loch Ness monster, a woolly mammoth, and even a grand slime beast . . . and then hit the town!

Kids and parents will love ogling the astounding photographs of Hugh McMahon's real carved pumpkins and laughing along with the story"s surprise ending. And with step-by-step carving instructions and photos included in the book, they can also create their own masterpieces.

Genres: Halloween, Picture Books, Holiday, Childrens, Fiction, Fantasy

32 pages, Hardcover

First published August 18, 2011

About the author

Rosen's Website should provide all this and more. It's http://www.fidosopher.com.
Nonetheless: Michael J. Rosen is an American author and illustrator with over 120 books of fiction, nonfiction, humor, picture books, poetry, and more. With a strong interest in nature and animals, reflecting his animal behavior degree from Ohio State University, Rosen resides within a peaceful crease of Central Ohio with his pack of animal companions that include 2 small koi ponds he helped build on the 100 acres he shares in the foothills of the Ohio Appalachians. An avid dog lover, he was inspired by Chant, his newest Australian stumpy-tail cattle dog, which led to the creation of his newest book of fiction, The Tale of Rescue, which will be released in October 2015. With an MFA in poetry from Columbia University, Rosen also showcases his skills and talents in other projects such as The Maine Coon’s Haiku: And Other Poems for Cat Lovers (2015).

Reviews

[Kathryn]

Did. Not. Like. The story felt so mean-spirited to me. The carved pumpkins are, of course, amazing. But I would only recommend this if you are a huge fan of photos of carved pumpkins. And I don't think it's one I'd recommend for kids.

[Ashley]

The pumpkin carvings were amazing; I didn't care for the story, though.

[Karen]

Love the mixed media illustrations in this cute picture book.

[Katherine Austin]

1)Book summary, in your own words (3 pts)
-Tired of spending Halloween sitting on people's porches and not being able to dress up, a group of Jack-O-Lanterns decide to revolt against their holiday tradition. This year, they want to dress up and actually scare the children. The pumpkins have a grand time determining what to dress up as and getting their costumes together, so much that they grab the attention from the other vegetables who ask if they can join them. The pumpkins laugh in amusement and say that there is no way that kids would be scared of vegetables.Eventually, Halloween approaches and the Jack-O-Lanterns have yet to scare even one kid. Then, they hear a herd of children screaming in terror while running away from the thing kids hate most in the world... vegetables. The pumpkins then learn that they should have let the vegetables participate with them and apologize to them for their exlusion.
2) Grade level, interest level, lexile (1 pt)
-Kindergarten-3rd Grade
3) Appropriate classroom use (subject area) (1 pt)
-Reading Language Arts
4) Individual students who might benefit from reading (1 pt)
-Students who tend to leave other children out of discussion or activities
-Students that love Halloween
5) Small group use (literaturecircles) (1 pt)
- Have students read aloud in pairs and small groups. Have students make predictions on what they think is going to happen before reading.
6) Whole class use (read aloud) (1 pt)
-Carpet reading.
-Before a Halloween Party or on Halloween as fun entertainment.
7) Related books in genre/subject or content area (1 pt)
-Jack the Pumpkinhead by Matt Crosser (pumpkins and bullying)
8) Multimedia connections (audio book, movie) available (1 pt)
None Available.

[Linda]

This project obviously started with Hugh Mcmahon's carvings and had a story written around it to showcase his amazing carving skills.

Unfortunately because of this, the story was a bit contrived, rather than standing on it's own as an interesting and fun story.

Hate to think Michael Rosen was working to a nasty deadline and didn't have time to let the carvings work their magic on his storytelling soul).

From a nation of non-pumpkin-carvers the intructions at the back were very informative, and maybe even one day helpful.

[SouthWestZippy]

The pumpkins no longer want to sit on the porch they want to join in the Halloween fun. I loved looking at the wonderful, creative and amazing pumpkins throughout the book. It was a fun read but I am just not fond of the story line.

[Anna Nesterovich]

The pumpkins are great. There are even a few ideas we'd like to implement next time. As for the story, it's not all that great. Besides, it's not written well enough for small kids; doesn't really help with literacy, though can be entertaining.

[babyhippoface]

You want to read this book for the illustrations. The story is just so-so, but those carved pumpkins are intricate and terrific.

[Brandy]

My date for reading this one isn’t accurate - it’s been on our bookshelf for years (Thanks to Nana knowing it would appeal to her Halloween-loving granddaughter). The story at times is a bit awkward in its attempt to include all the different pumpkin carvings, but Violet does find it amusing that the truly scary creatures are the veggies.

[Lee Lee]

Night Of The Pumpkinheads - Michael J. Rosen

Not to be mistaken for our brilliant British author theee one and only Michael Rosen.

This was an interesting book. I love the illustrations! Probably the most unique looking pictures I’ve seen. 🎃 🔦 ✨ and there’s even a part at the end to carve your own pumpkin.

[Cathy]

https://www.goodreads.com/review/edit...#

This is a fun book about pumpkins that wanted to make their own scary pumpkins. But they found out they were not as scary as ----------! Read the book and found out who is scariest of them all.

[Anthony]

Pumpkinheads in a patch decide to have a contest on who can design the most creative face and scare the children. Although ingenious, their plan doesn't quite work, but what does scare the children is quite interesting.

[Cheryl]

Gimmick. Pointless. Not funny or scary. Sorry.

[Marcia]

Funny at the end but long and didn’t love the illustrations

[Sarah]

The pumpkins try to scare the children on Halloween, but discover that something else is scarier.

[Mollie B]

silly story. Very holiday

[Jean Ann]

The gifted sculptor, Hugh McMahon, uses a variety of uniquely carved pumpkins to compliment Rosen’s Halloween tale about a group of mischievous gourds plotting to leave their boring porches on Halloween night to scare unsuspecting trick-or-treaters. The photos of McMahon’s pumpkins taken by William Brinson exhibit a variety of intricately sculpted pumpkins amid simple chalk sketches. A plain black backdrop gives the book an overall feeling of spookiness and perfectly showcases the illuminated jack-o-lanterns. However, these are no ordinary jack-o-lanterns! McMahon transforms these average pumpkins into unusual characters: a spooky zombie mime, a realistic swarm of angry bees and even hungry prehistoric dinosaurs. While the photos of McMahon’s pumpkins would not tell a logical story without Rosen’s words, my children were more interested in the remarkable carvings than the story itself. McMahon’s imaginative pumpkin carvings transform a somewhat ordinary Halloween story into an extraordinary October adventure. I encourage you to visit Hugh McMahon’s website at www.gochelsea.com/pumpkins to view more of his amazing work. I would add this book to my library collection because of the talented McMahon's pumpkin sculptures.

[Dione Basseri]

Can McMahon carve interesting pumpkins? Yes, but I've seen better on Facebook. And, combined with a really, REALLY boring story, this ends up being a pretty terrible Halloween book.

A group of pumpkins decide they want to join the Halloween fun and try on different carvings as costumes. Sadly, the arrangements look horrifically photo-shopped. Oh, the carvings seem real enough, but they're just copy-pasted onto backgrounds, never seeming to quite fit. So that's really the only thing scary about this book.

The "punchline" that the kids are afraid of the non-pumpkin vegetables at least helps mitigate the pumpkinhead racism spouted earlier in the book. It certainly isn't amusing.

Save your personal AND library budgets and pass on this one!

[Ina]

The photographs of the amazing carved pumpkins in this book are amazing and my storytime audience studied each and every picture with an intensity that they don't always possess! These pictures make up for the choppy, somewhat disjointed text. The pumpkin patch pumpkins decide that this year they want to dress up for Halloween and have fun. They form groups and compete to try and scare the trick-or-treaters. Which group proves the scariest: The small pumpkins as eyes and bees? The green pumpkins as monsters? The white pumpkins as zombie mimes?? In the end, it isn't the pumpkins that prove to be the scariest to the kids...

[Kimmy]

Haha, this was actually funny and very cute. The pumpkins are trying to be the very scariest jack'o'lanterns this Halloween, in fact they are taking it to the next level, they will be going trick-or-treating and trying to scare all the trick-or-treaters this year. Whoever is the scariest wins. A pretty cute story, my kids laughed.

[Anthony]

All the Pumpkinheads in the patch decide to dress in scary costumes, carve themselves into monsters and leave the patch to scare the children on Halloween, but after all their efforts the children aren't scared one bit, and only want to exchange candies with them. But then something quite ghoulish comes along, and scare the wits out of the children, and amaze the pumpkinheads.

[Amy J]

I am always on the lookout for books with cool pumpkins in them. The one thing I have to do on Halloween is carve a pumpkin and there is no better place to get great ideas than a childrens book. The story here is mediocre but the pumpkins and other vegetables, which are photographs, are marvelous.

[Mti Librarian]

Great illustrations featuring a combination of chalk drawings, photographs, and pumpkin carvings.

[Martha]

GREAT PICTURES!!!

[Mary Ann]

Photographs of intricately carved pumpkins are amazing and will draw kids to this. But story wasn't captivating and felt a bit like a vehicle for the art.

[Samantha]

Great Halloween display book. Each page features pictures of carved pumpkins and a tutorial at the end shows readers hwo to carve one of the pumpkins from the story!
Sidenote: author is from OH

[Samantha Hodge]

1 star for the story, 5 stars for the pumpkin carvings. The story bored me silly, but I could look at the carvings all day. Fascinating.

[Tiffany]

The pictures of the various made jack o lanterns were cool to see. The story wasn't that exciting the names of the pumpkins were creative.

[Marina]

The carved pumpkins were so cool. The story was ok but the pumpkin carvings made it extra special.

[Laura Madsen]

Fun story and amazing photography of carved jack-o-lanterns.