I liked the color palette of the illustrations in this book, and... that's it. I read this to my nephew tonight, and when he learned that the man sold all of his belongings except his bed, stove, and bathtub in order to save this field he said, "Where is he going to keep his food?" Excellent point, really. There were so many glaring improbabilities in this story that it was really hard to enjoy the thing. I'm all for imagination, but I think that completely unchained imagination was the undoing of this book. And that's not just me, either. When we finished Pumpkins I asked my nephew, who is
four, and all about imagination what he thought of it, and his response was, "Um... Amy, that was really weird." Not even he could suspend disbelief.
