Rotten Pumpkin: A Rotten Tale in 15 Voices by David M. Schwartz
My rating: 4/5 cats
the photos in this book are an easy five stars cats. watch a jack-o-lantern transform from whimsical holiday porch decoration into flattened, mold covered slime disk in 32 easy pages! it kind of makes me wonder why we don’t carve the jack-o-lanterns weeks in advance, because they are way cooler and spookier after all the insects and mold have had their way with them. and i suppose it would discourage mini-hooligans from stealing and smashing them, because kids don’t wanna touch this – it is too disturbing.
no one wants to eat funsize snickers with gooey mold-fingers.
the words are less fun. the book seems unable to decide whether it wants to be scientific or fun-for-kids. the first pages, in the voice of the jack-o-lantern are like a sort-of-poem, but it is very clunky: Here I stand, bright with light, proud and round. Tonight is my glory night. Call me Jack. My flame is spent. No more do I glow. Back to the garden I go.
and then later, Of all the strange things growing on this pumpkin, I am the strangest. I am a slime mold. I started as a single cell, tumbling through the soil. Every once in a while I divided in half so there were two of “me.” Soon there were lots and lots of us. Then we did the oddest thing: we joined to become one living creature that spread out in squiggly yellow arms connected like a net. The net, called a “plasmodium,” began to move.
which is much less cutesy.
so it’s a little uneven.
i like the idea that all the worms and mice and fungi are given a voice as they turn this one pumpkin into mulch – it is a great idea for a book, and it is fascinating to watch this pumpkin decay more and more on every page. nature is super-gross.
the winner for “best photo” is this one:
and “best voice” is the voice of the fly:
My keen fly nose smells what I am looking for – dead fish, rotten meat, dog doo – the stinkier, the better! A rotting pumpkin is perfect. I taste it with my feet. You’re gonna love hearing how I eat. I vomit on the pumpkin flesh. My vomit dissolves pumpkin nutrients so I can lap them up. A delicious, nutritious morning smoothie!
what kid isn’t going to love this?
