Pumpkin Jack

By Will Hubbell

Week 3:  Books for Boys 

"Pumpkin Jack" is a story about a boy named Tim and his Halloween pumpkin.  It goes through the process of Tim carving the pumpkin and giving it the name "Jack."  Once Halloween is over, instead of throwing the pumpkin away, Tim sits him outside and watches him decompose.  After a while he sits the pumpkin in their garden and watches him slowly disappear.  In the spring, he watches Jack some back to life in the form of a green plant that in the fall produces many pumpkins.  Tim shares the new pumpkins with his friends and then carves one for himself and says "Welcome Back, Jack."   

This book appeals to boys because it has a boy as the main character and most of them love Halloween themed books.  The boys in the class always enjoy when we spend a week doing a book study over "Pumpkin Jack."   Boys also seem to like stories that are more scientific. This book talks about decaying, the mold growing on the pumpkins, and it coming back to life.  

This is a great book to do in the Classroom the week of Halloween.  This year in our class we read it that week and on Halloween we carved Jack.  You would be surprised how many first graders had never seen a pumpkin carved or had ever seen the inside.  We do a whole "pumpkin investigation" that is science based.  We even count all the seeds!   Then we left him in the classroom until he started to get too moldy and then moved him outside to our garden box. 

We put the seeds back inside and watched him decay and disappear.  Then in the Spring....

Jack came back!  The kids would walk by and say "Welcome Back Jack!"  Our hope is to have some pumpkins this Fall!