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Me and the Pumpkin Queen by Marlane Kennedy, Greenwillow, 2007

Mildred's mother died when she was very young. Her loving father is a veterinarian. Her Aunt Arlene is too involved in her life because she wants Mildred to focus on 'ordinary' interests of typical eleven year olds, like clothes and shopping. But, Mildred is really only interested in one thing: growing pumpkin giants. Pumpkins are her passion and a way to remember her mother who loved the annual pumpkin festival.

Her early attempts at pumpkin growing do not yield the giants she hopes for but as her knowledge grows so does the size of her pumpkins. From the special seed to the pruning to the feeding, watering and nurturing, Mildred shares the process with the reader. We cheer Mildred's success and are in awe of her dedication.




This storyline echoes Joan Bauer's Squashed in many ways. In Bauer's book, Ellie is also coping with the loss of her mother. She lavishes care on her pumpkin to help it gain weight, while she herself, is trying to drop twenty pounds. Ellie is in high school and feels awkward and out of step with the other kids until she meets a guy who is as interested in vegetables as she is.

In both stories the weigh-in at the end of the story is very dramatic and tension filled. The reader is as invested as Mildred and Ellie in the outcome.

Kennedy's book is a sweet, sweet story of dedication and love for elementary age children and older. Her book is filled with almost step by step directions on growing pumpkins that had me, in a moment of utter madness, eyeing my own backyard and wondering if there was room for a pumpkin patch.

Bauer's book resonates with middle school and high school readers as eloquently testified to by the worn edges and creased cover of my own daughter's copy.

Lovely reads.

Sam Riddleburger and Cece Bell have the definitive tutorial on how to carve pumpkins. Sam says, "People keep bumping into my site looking for templates. People, templates stink. Templates are only for people who lack confidence in their own creativity. This lesson will empower you to make your OWN pumpkin." I for one lack confidence in my own creativity when it comes to pumpkin-carving. Then

Since I have an occasional educator stopping by, I thought I'd pass this on--from Fuse 8"

"Now that kids are back in school, thoughts are beginning to turn to
fall--bright leaves, corduroys, apple cider, and everyone's favorite orange fall
symbol ... pumpkins! In celebration I am running a contest on my website: http://www.marlanekennedy.com/. The winner will receive an autographed copy of my middle grade novel, ME AND THE PUMPKIN QUEEN, along with 10 Atlantic Giant pumpkin seeds (the kind used to grow monstrous 1,000 plus pound pumpkins and which my main character is quite fond of). The winner can try to grow his or her own championship pumpkin or keep the seeds as a unique souvenir. Contest rules can be accessed on my homepage under News." Seems to me that youse teachers out there would do well to have your kids participate in this. It's too late to plant pumpkin seeds now but future classes might appreciate a teacher who tends to gigantor orange creatures.

Despite the fact that I have a biology minor, I forgot one minor fact: the birds and the bees. The pumpkins were growing nicely in a pot in the house, but my mind started whirring when I noticed little flower buds sprouting out of the pumpkin vines. I spoke to a few friends and asked them about it and they all agreed that you need to allow pollination to happen to get any pumpkins.

I went into a tailspin and off I went to Home Depot. I bought stakes and fencing and garden soil and peat moss and all kinds of other garden equipment. Then I went to work.

In transit, several of the vines broke and a few had trouble in the transplant, but now I have two very stong looking pumpkin vines (with blooming yellow flowers) and another that is looking a bit sad. Here are photos of the two strong ones. I've names them Hank and John (Hank is the one on the left).



I decided not to post a picture of the sad looking vine out of consideration for its feelings. His name is Mo. Poor Mo.

Anyhow, after reading a little about pumpkins I discovered that not only does there need to be cross-pollination of flowers to get pumpkins, but there are male flowers and female flowers involved. Apparently, a bee has to poke around a male flower and then make his way over to the female flower to successfully cross-pollinate.

A close friend told me it might be a good idea to artificially pollinate the plants to give a better chance for a pumpkin yield. This would require me to prowl around my yard with a cotton swab and poke around these flowers somehow. It seems awfully dirty to me to get involved with plant sex, but if it give me a better chance to get pumpkins, I'll do it.

Now, I looked under every single flower and saw no testicles so I'm curious... How does one determine whether a flower is a male or a female? And where does one stick the swab? I'd hate to gratuitously manhandle Hank and John's genitalia without knowing I was going to yield jack-o-lantern worthy gourds!

Somebody please help!

Career Day

I was asked by a close friend to take part in a career day at a local middle school next week. I, of course, asked her if she wanted me to participate as a writer, a chiropractor, or a Chippendale dancer. They're all valid careers...except for maybe 'writer' as I suppose income is a prerequisite for calling something a career. I'll let you know how it goes!

Writing Stuff

Being that this is a blog about writing, I suppose I should fill y'all in on what's going on in my writing world. As I posted a while back, book #2 is finished. It's finished and I'm happy with it and as I go back through it I can find only small details I want to change. The book is a departure for me. It's historical fiction about kids in 1934 horseracing and although I had a blast writing it, it was HARD! But I also love it. It's dark, gritty, and shows that there is light even in the darkest places.

Book #3 is well underway. I am having a blast with this one, letting myself go a little hog wild. It's funny and tense and unnerving and asks really really hard questions. It's all the things I love about YA fiction. I crossed the 30,000 word mark not too long ago. This book is still in creative flux so I don't want to say too much about it yet. However, the acronym formed by the words in the title is EMLM. I'd love to see if anyone can guess the title (Loree and Liza keep your mouths shut!), but not even an infinite number of monkeys sitting at an infinite number of typewriters would come close--especially if monkey #3,454,237,743 calls in sick that day. He's a very smart monkey.

Quilt

I was asked to sign a quilt square for a fundraiser. Each square in the quilt will be signed by a children's author and it will be auctioned off at the NYSRA conference in the fall. Proceeds will go toward funding children's collections in libraries. Very cool. Now I have this square of fabric and I have no idea what to do with it. Should I just sign it with a Sharpie marker? I think I should do something a little more creative, but I have no crafty flair. Maybe I'll go pester the ladies with short sensible haircuts down at JoAnn's Fabrics.

Garden Stuff

I suck at gardening. I hate my backyard because it's all gardens and it grows too fast for me to manage it. Daylilies are the bane of my existence. Those things just spread like crazy! So do ferns and lilac bushes and the roses I've been trying to kill for 5 years. Here's a photo tour of my yard:

This is half of it. Dinosaurs could live back there. In the foreground is the goldfish pond that I hate and in the way back you can see our Victorian gazing ball. I knd of like that:



Here is a closer picture of the gazing ball. It's green. I can't get much closer due to the carniverous weeds underfoot and the evil rose bush that is hiding off to the right:



Here is the evil rose bush. Do not be fooled by it's beauty. That's just a lure to draw you in, like a moth to a blowtorch. You've seen Little Shop of Horrors, haven't you? I've cut this thing to the ground every year and every year it comes back bigger and with a greater hatred for me. Damn you Nietzche!



Here is the other side of my yard. Please note the park bench being swallowed by underbrush. It's what gardeners call "ground cover." It's what I call "Death by Chlorophyl." Notice my poor gargoyle being eaten alive:



Pumpkins and Watermelons

The pumpkins and watermelons are coming along well. I only planted a few of each from the germinated seeds. I have a slew more in ziplock bags all sprouted. If anyone wants them, let me know and I'll mail them to you. They'll probably survive the trip! From what you've seen of my backyard, there's not much space to plant these guys. Right now, I have them growing in pots in my back room, which faces the jungle yard. The plants are doing swimmingly, thank you very much.

Here is the magic watering can (duckie insisted on posing in the background):



Here is the watermelon pot and the pumpkin pot (froggie insisted on posing in the watermelon dirt). Those pumpkins are going totally insane! It's interesting how alike the plants are. They grow in very much the same way, but clearly the pumpkins are the faster growers!



That's all for now. Look for new Google Pings, more updates, more news, and more fun in the upcoming days!