Mystery Vine: A Pumpkin Surprise
PreSchool-K—Two children plant a garden in the spring. They water and weed and enjoy each vegetable as it ripens, but they are puzzled by one particular vine. Both spring and summer pass, and finally, in the fall, their mystery vine produces pumpkins. This will come as no surprise to even very young readers, as pumpkins are pictured on both the cover and title page, one of the seed packets the little girl carries has a picture of a pumpkin, and the book is subtitled "a pumpkin surprise." The layout is quite nice, with the text offset in small frames and enticing pictures of vegetables gracing the top, and brightly colored collages with clean lines decorating the pages. However, the rhyming text itself is often forced and awkward. Delightful pumpkin books abound, making this one a marginal purchase.—Grace Oliff, Ann Blanche Smith School, Hillsdale, NJEND