Jerry SmathCritiques

Halloween

Rod's Rating: Indifferent
Adelia's Rating: Good

What the different faces of a pumpkin can look like.

Silly with nice illustrations

Silly with nice illustrations

SUBJECTS:
United States
English Fiction
Children's Stories In English
Children's Stories

This book absolutely captivated me when I was four years old, to the point of memorization. It's ultimately a redemption story and has a message about treating those you love with consideration. I've read it to so many 3-5 years olds, and it remains a well-loved, imaginative classic!

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I saw this the other day and I remembered that I used to read this all the time when I was small. I couldn't remember much about it from when I was little, besides the pictures of the elephant. I have some vague notions that it used to make me sad and then super happy at the end. Which is kind of how it made me feel reading it now.

A cute Halloween story about the different sizes of pumpkins. Some are big, some are small, some are scary, some aren't at all. The story shows many different ways we use pumpkins during the Halloween season. Easy to read for young ones and the end of the book has a few seek and finds.

Definitely a must read. Grandma Tildy just can't say no to these poor animals. Love the illustration in the wonderful picture book.

elephant loves to go to school but one day the bus breaks so elephant decides that he will help out and become the bus for the school
1 book

a little girl is in love with pumpkins and how they are used for so many different things
2 books

a bunch of little witches come down on halloween and try to scare everyone but they came down on halloween night and no one is scared of them
1 book

I thought that I like Pumpkins by Jerry Smath is a very fun book. This book focuses on pumpkins and rhyming. For example, "Some pumpkins are real, some pumpkins are plastic with pointed black hats held on by elastic." This book is great for Halloween or fall. This book got me in the spirit of the season. All of the rhyming words in the story are fun and creative. "candy" and "handy", "plush" and "mush". All of the pictures on each page match the story very well. Each page is full of different colors. There is not too much writing on each page. Most of the words are simple to read but there is some that gives the reader a challenge in learning some new words that they may not know.

read this book to my son when he was little. he liked the book

This is an unnecessary but not undiverting board book with pictures to go along with the wheels on the bus, which of course your baby knows by heart, allowing her to focus on connecting words and images and concepts. I guess? I just know we have fun singing it. And I like how British all the people look in it and trying to put my finger on exactly what makes them look British. And I don't know what value Raffi adds with his fuckin' mug on the cover. And I laugh every time I get to the end and see the sheet music and it says "The Wheels on the Bus (traditional)" (only the best of the many traditional bus ballads passed down to us from the bards of the north country).½

Children peek bugs.
Age: 1 and Up
Source: Pierce County Library

"But no Elephants" is a story about a little old lady who buys a bunch of pets from a man selling them to her. He always has an elephant with him, but she's never willing to buy it, until the winter comes. She finally buys it, and hilarious things happen. I really liked this book and I would use it for grades K-3. I think the overall theme is acceptance and love.

This book is about an old woman living in her house alone. The zookeeper came and brought her animals one by one. She would take the animals, but she always said "But No Elephants!". Eventually, she took in the elephant and though he broke through the floor, he proved helpful by moving their house to a warmer climate where the winter wouldn't be so harsh on everyone. I loved this book and the lesson it is teaching. Though the elephant barely fit in the house, he contributed and helped the family of animals and the old lady. This book is appropriate for ages K-3.

Funny little book. The children love it.

"On Halloween wee witches hatch / from pumpkins in the this pumpkin patch," begins Jerry Smath's engaging little holiday tale, in which four wee witches attend Scaring School, before embarking upon a quest to frighten some children. Unfortunately for them, their targets - the children at a fair, the marchers in a Halloween parade, some trick-or-treaters - prove more difficult to scare than they anticipated...

With a simple rhyming text - no more than a half sentence per page - and cute illustrations in a cartoonish style, The Wee Witches Halloween is a book that will appeal to the youngest picture-book audience, who will appreciate its gentle humor and appealing visuals (it has green witches, after all!).

This would be a great read aloud to do in a lower elementary classroom during the fall. The pictures in this book are awesome!

This is a funny story about a lost cat who loves salami and how that brings two people together. This story is touching in the idea that people do love their pets, and do get upset when they get lost.

Grandma Tildy finally agrees to take an uwanted elephant into her home, but soon regrets her decision.