Synopsis
Emily is tired of pumpkins. At school she and her friend Vincetta Louise have been doing pumpkin math, pumpkin field trips, and pumpkin writing. Can t they just carve jack-o-lanterns? But even this ends up being an assignment: the kids have to make pumpkin selfportraits.
Then something happens to Emily s jack-o-lantern, and her friendship with Vinni is tested. The two girls get past their quarrel - but will they ever want to see a pumpkin again?
Children's Literature
Catalanotto and Schembri team up as joint author/illustrators for this second title in their "Second Grade Friends" series. Best friends Emily and Vinni are tired of their classroom's October emphasis on pumpkins—visit to a pumpkin farm; tasting of pumpkin bread, pie, and soup; reading of pumpkin stories; writing of pumpkin poems. So they are not pleased when Mr. Marvin gives them the assignment of decorating pumpkins to look like themselves. The assignment, however, gives Vinni the chance to vent her resentful feelings against Emily after she is unable to attend Emily's much-touted birthday party. Vinni vandalizes Emily's self-portrait pumpkin and then has to find a way of restoring both pumpkin and friendship. The "no more pumpkins" theme is amusing but more appropriate for kindergarten than for second grade (what second grade classes visit pumpkin farms?). Spirited Vinni steals what begins as Emily's story, told from Emily's point of view. While careful readers will enjoy seeing Vinni's revenge enacted only in a picture preceding the final chapter, Catalanotto and Schembri leave too many puzzling gaps in the text: we never really understand why Vinni is unable to attend Emily's party or see Emily's disappointment at Vinni's absence first hand. Too much time and text are spent on the too many pumpkins and not enough on the friendship dynamics that are the emotional heart of the story.