Customer Reviews

Pooh's Pumpkin (Winnie the Pooh First Readers)

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This is a very good story about patience, gardening and friendship-my son just loves Winnie the Pooh and this story is no exception--if fact this collection of Winnie the Pooh First Readers are all a real treat-

Our son has a visual processing disorder and the book is simplistic enough and has pictures on each page that he can comprehend on his own what the story is about. It is hard to find books that work for him, I am thrilled this worked.

When she was young, my daughter loved all stories about Winnie the Pooh and I know she would have loved this one. Pooh plants a pumpkin seed in early spring and wants to grow a great pumpkin. He goes to the cupboard and gets a large number of honey jars and takes them to the garden. All summer long he sits eating honey and watching the pumpkin vine grow. The story goes through all the stages of the growth of the pumpkin, from early sprout, to the blossom, to the green bulb and finally to the large orange pumpkin. Since he has consumed so much honey, Pooh's belly has taken on a shape similar to that of the pumpkin. When the pumpkin is finally ripe, Pooh and his friends carve it into the best jack-o'-lantern in the Hundred-Acre-Wood.
The artwork in the book is excellent and totally in keeping with the Winnie the Pooh tradition and the text is large and easy to read. If I had encountered this book when my daughter was younger, I would have read it to her many times.

Pooh's Pumpkin is a Winnie the Pooh First Reader book that I received through a refund offer with two cereal boxes.

Pooh's Pumpkin is a sure hit with the colorful illustrations that remind us of the impending fall season.

Pooh's Pumpkin consists of thirty-four pages with the characters of Winnie the Pooh, Christopher Robin, Piglet, Owl, Rabbit and Eeyore. Some of the other books in the Winnie the Pooh First Readers series are Pooh's Best Friend, Pooh Gets Stuck (we have that one too), Rabbit Gets Lost and Pooh's Honey Tree.

Pooh's Pumpkin begins with Rabbit, Christopher Robin and Winnie the Pooh planting seeds in rabbits garden one spring day. Pooh is interested in learning what Rabbit is planting indicating he would like to grow a pumpkin too. Once Pooh promised Rabbit that he would indeed take care of his growing pumpkin Rabbit gave him a seed. With the help of Christopher Robin Pooh planted his seed in a sunny spot near his house.

Next Pooh decided to sit and watch his seed grow until Christopher Robin informed him this would take time and not happen until the fall. Pooh then decided he needed something to eat and grabbed a honey pot from his kitchen cupboard and sat at the spot watching the seed. Pooh continued to sit and watch and eat while spring turned into summer.

Half way through the summer months Piglet stopped by to ask Pooh about the vine he was growing. Pooh informs Piglet that he wants a pumpkin and not a vine. Pooh continued caring for the vine when one day Owl showed up insisting to Pooh that his flower looked just right. Pooh told Owl he was waiting for a pumpkin and not a flower. Owl looks at the vine and tells Pooh that he is growing a vine and a flower that will make a cucumber. Well Pooh then wonders if a cucumber will taste good with honey. Pooh thinks for a minute and decides that Rabbit gave him a seed to grow a pumpkin and he will continue to watch until it becomes a pumpkin.

Pooh watched the plant while eating his honey, and occasionally watered the plant. Pooh noticed the weather was changing and the leaves started turning colors. Pooh started to fall asleep but woke up to find Eeyore looking at him asking about the green ball inside the flower.

This makes Pooh confused because he wanted to grow a pumpkin and not a flower or a green ball. Eeyore assures Pooh they can find something to do with it no matter what it is. As days and weeks passed the green ball grew bigger and bigger, until it turned orange. The color than became brighter as the leaves fell from the trees. On the vine was an orange pumpkin. Owl, Christopher Robin, Rabbit, Piglet, Eeyore, Tigger and Pooh gathered around the pumpkin until Tigger compared the pumpkin to Pooh's tummy. Christopher Robin called his friend Pooh a silly old bear explaining that Pooh ate so much while watching the seed grow that his belly grew too.

Christopher Robin picked up the pumpkin so they could carve a jack-o' lantern. Owl carved the eyes while Rabbit did the nose and Piglet the mouth. They all made Pooh's pumpkin the best jack-o' lantern in the Hundred- Acre Wood. The book also has a few blank pages at the end where you can have the young reader trace a pumpkin picture and do some sketches.

The book shows how they all share in the carving of the jack-o' lantern and how patiently Pooh waits for his seed to grow along with the confusing process to the other animals. We get to see Pooh anxiously watch his seed grow and eat honey plus water his seed. No matter what the other animals say or think about his seed, vine, flower or green ball Pooh still waits for the outcome before getting discouraged. They all learn together how the seed grows into a pumpkin and share in their happiness with the end result.

Please, don't let the "first reader" label deter anyone from buying, reading and appreciating the profound wisdom of this deeply philosophical metaphor of the triumph, trials and tragedy of life.

It is truly a profound story of man's fate, as relevant as any weighty words written by Andre Malraux, Plato or Paddington Bear. It raises questions to which there are no definitive answers, only individual opinions, ideas and issues of cultural relativity. Although Winnie the Pooh is a bear, in fiction at that, the story of his pumpkin expresses the full tragedy of life. If Americans are optimistic and the British perpetually pessimistic, then this wonderful story clearly expresses the innate fatalism of Canada.

It begins in innocence as Rabbit plants pumpkin seeds. Pooh is given a single pumpkin seed to plant, the whole story rests on this one seed. Obviously, it symbolizes the one "seed" of democracy planted by Canadians on July 1, 1867. Canada? Of course, as everyone knows, "Winnie the Pooh" was named for "Winnie", a Canadian bear named Winnipeg, or "Winnie" for short, a favourite of Christopher Robin, the son of the British author A.A. Milne (look it up on Google if you doubt this). Winnie the Pooh is the pure multicultural Canadian.

Being Canadian, "Winnie" was prone to sober second thoughts, a theme eloquently expressed in this story. Winnie wanted a pumpkin; but, by summer all he had was a vine. By the end of summer, he had a vine with a flower. Owl, noted for his wisdom, informed Pooh "A flower grows on a vine before there is a . . . cucumber!"

It is a perfect metaphor for life itself. Often, people begin with one grand goal and end up with a completely different result. Such was the sad fate facing Pooh, an invaluable lesson for children to learn. Pooh accepts his fate with typical Canadian complacency. Instead of demanding restitution, revenge or a class action suit, he asks one of the great unanswered philosophical questions, "I wonder if cucumbers taste good with honey?"

It's an issue as equally open to deference, discussion and debate as Plato's riddle of the cave. As with Plato, it is equally subject to a fascinating range of answers. Time passed. Pooh, the perfect Canadian, remains forever patient, polite and pouty. The flower becomes a green ball. It grows larger and larger. At last, with autumn as a metaphor for the twilight years of life itself, the large green ball slowly turns orange.

By now, having spent months just sitting and watching his pumpkin grow, Pooh has a "honey belly" that is as round as the pumpkin. Christopher Robin tells him, "You gave the pumkin so much care that you grew along with it." Thus do we grow to resemble our lives.

Had it ended here, it would close with a classic American happy ending. But this is not an American story, nor an American bear, nor an American Christopher Robin. Instead, as was the case with the British Empire that was nurtured for centuries, it ends with the sudden and cruel death of the pumpkin.

Christopher Robin leads the mob who kill the pumpkin with wickedly sharp knives; Owl, who couldn't identify a pumkin from a cucumber, carves out the eyes. Rabbit carves out the nose. Piglet carves out the mouth. On this gory note the book ends with the tragedy of a once beautifully alive pumpkin carved into "the best jack-o'-lantern in the Hundred-Acre Wood."

It is a perfect metaphor for the human condition. It's also neat for kids. May they grow to be as wise as Pooh.