Me and the Pumpkin Queen

by Marlane Kennedy

Overview

It's just something she has to do.

Mildred has always dreamed of growing a one-thousand-pound pumpkin to enter in her town's Pumpkin Show. Her aunt Arlene thinks she's obsessed, but Mildred prefers to think of herself as focused. And growing giant pumpkins is way more interesting than boys or clothes or the other girly things Aunt Arlene wants her to like. She's been trying for four long growing seasons—ever since her mama died—and every one has ended in disaster. It's not easy, especially with dogs who don't realize how delicate seedlings are, and tornadoes that could destroy months of work, and most people thinking that an eleven-year-old doesn't stand a chance. But Daddy believes in Mildred, and so does her best friend, Jacob. Maybe this will finally be her year.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780061140242
Publisher:	HarperCollins
Publication date:	07/28/2009
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	192
Product dimensions:	5.12(w) x 7.66(h) x 0.43(d)
Age Range:	8 - 12 Years

About the Author

Marlane Kennedy moved to Circleville, Ohio, at age eleven. She participated in many Pumpkin Show parades as a child, but never tried growing her own giant pumpkin. But after writing Me and the Pumpkin Queen, she planted her own Howard Dill's Atlantic Giant seed and grew a 250-pounder, pictured above, that took fifth prize in her local fair. Marlane Kennedy is also the author of The Dog Days of Charlotte Hayes. She lives in Wooster, Ohio, with her husband and three children.

Read an Excerpt

Me and the Pumpkin Queen MOB

Chapter One

I don't think I'm abnormally obsessive. I mean, Daddy hasn't taken me to the doctor or anything to find out for sure, so I prefer to describe myself as focused. A lot of kids my age are focused. Like Arnie Bradford. He is focused on basketball. Every time we drive by his house on our way to town, he is in his driveway shooting baskets. Even in the middle of winter. Then there is Gloria Mathis. She is all the time blathering about this teenage actor she is in love with. She cuts his picture out of magazines and plasters them all over her school notebooks.

But truth be told, they are focused on the usual kinds of things that kids all over the place are focused on. Like there are probably hundreds of thousands of fifth graders into basketball and popular actors. It just so happens that my thoughts are consumed with something out of the ordinary. Daddy isn't worried about me at all. But Aunt Arlene sure is.

Me and the Pumpkin Queen MOB. Copyright (c) by Marlane Kennedy . Reprinted by permission of HarperCollins Publishers, Inc. All rights reserved. Available now wherever books are sold.

Editorial Reviews

"I don't think I'm abnormally obsessive. I mean, Daddy hasn't taken me to the doctor or anything to find out for sure, so I prefer to describe myself as focused." With that promising opening, Mildred introduces both herself and her raison d'etre: her goal of winning the blue ribbon for biggest pumpkin at the Circleville Pumpkin Show. Certainly any reasonably objective observer would describe Mildred's interest as obsessive, as she spends all of her money, time and energy on her pumpkins, determined to beat the obnoxiously patronizing Grover Fernhart at the weigh-in. Newcomer Kennedy presents readers with a winsomely single-minded heroine and her lovingly supportive supporting cast, the friends and family who (mostly) give her the space to pursue her dream. Weaving unexpectedly fascinating pumpkin-horticulture facts into the tale, the narrative presents Mildred with one real opponent: her childless Aunt Arlene, who wanted to adopt Mildred when her mother died and who persists in trying to turn her into a normal little girl. The psychologizing of Mildred's grief is unsubtly telegraphed, but withal it's a warmhearted and genuine offering that demands little and gives much. (Fiction. 8-12)

Kirkus Reviews