This is a wonderful Halloween tale! I could imagine it being read aloud over the course of a few nights. This book would definitely have made the cut for The Halloween Family Read, (THFR is the event that happened every October when my children and I all slept in the same room and read our favorite spooky stories aloud). The characters in the story were all interesting and easy to relate to. Most of us grew up with a bully and an elderly person who was not the friendliest to children in our neighborhoods. I also had the spooky house and of course listened to legends. This book was comfortable because I had that setting but it also had the right amount of spooky to make you want the lights on until you can get to the store and buy a pumpkin to keep you safe. The story reminded me of Goosebumps so fans of that series will love this book. I can see this being made into a Halloween show.
Parents there is some cursing in the book. Nick the main character is 17 so 'thought' curse words happen. I do not recall him actually using them. He has a little sister and the natural rivalry is there along with sibling love. He still obeys his parents though has his own thoughts about it. In other words the author did an excellent job portraying the family. The old lady also used minor cursing but over all it was not a major stumbling block. The cursing is in there far fewer times than a lot of YA books I have read. There is some violence as there is a bully situation. I thought the author also handled that realistically. There was no sex scenes though there is some crushing going on.
If you are looking for a book for a child I think younger teens and preteens will enjoy it more than older teens. If you do family reads this book will be enjoyed by all,(sometimes older teens just need permission to like something they think they are too old for). ( )

Oh well -- not worth reading further, & definitely can't use in classes --

I received this book in exchange for an HONEST REVIEW.

I found the book to be EXTREMELY boring. They always say you "catch" or lose your readers in the first ten pages and with this being a book for the ages where the attention span tends to be short...a slow start is considered death. In the case with this book...certain death. The story picks up a bit towards the end but it is "too little too late" and I am afraid most people would have quit on it by then. Plus...even with the improvement, there is not enough to make it worth recommending to anyone or looking for another book in the series (if this was intended to be a series).

One idea can be turned into a great book...but that one idea needs to be expanded and fleshed out not just dropped at the end of a book with nothing substantial before it.

I know how hard it is to finish writing a novel and I always give people credit for doing so...the problem now-a-days is that everyone thinks they are and that they don't need an editor or practice working their craft before publishing.

1 Star for the effort... ( )

I received this book from Library Thing for my honest opinion...
The Legend of the Pumpkin Thief is a children's book, with a halloween themed story line, that I thought had great potential initially but when I started reading it I got very bored. It was one of those books that was easy to put down and took me way too long to get through. It wasn't until almost the end of the book where it was actually interesting. The author told the story of Nick, a kid who read mysteries and thought of himself as an amateur detective, and the neighborhood mystery of the missing pumpkins he was trying to solve. There were so many opportunities to paint a real picture with Nick, his sister, the bully and his gang, etc. but it never happened, until the climax. I think if the first half of the book was rewritten with as much imagination as the ending, then I would recommend it. Otherwise I would not recommend this book. ( )

This book was received as an Early Reviewer selection.

Normally, this is the kind of book I would read voluntarily, as I am always looking for something to recommend to my middle school students. Unfortunately, this is not one that I will be passing along to them. Both the story and the writing are uneven throughout; it almost seemed as if two different authors collaborated to work together on it, but didn't talk to one another about what this book was supposed to be about and how it should be written. The story is listed as "horror," but all of the horror in the book is confined to about a dozen or so pages near the end. The remainder of the book is filled with one-dimensional characters, stilted dialogue, and building suspense that never quite builds to anything. It really is too bad, because the premise of the book had great potential. Perhaps a stronger editor would have helped. ( )