October Meeting Wrap-Up

The Book Buddies Book Club met yesterday to discuss Me and the Pumpkin Queen by Marlane Kennedy. It was a jam-packed meeting and lots of fun! We had special Halloween cupcakes as well as our regular snacks and we made foam pumpkins for our craft project. The highlight of the meeting was our phone call with the author, Marlane Kennedy! But more on that in the next post....

We had a wonderful discussion of Me and the Pumpkin Queen. Everyone really liked the book and all agreed that they would recommend it to a friend. We started by talking about our own hobbies (Mildred is obsessed with growing pumpkins and I wanted to find out what our club members were interested in) Our club member's hobbies include swimming, cooking, reading, arts and crafts and animals and all of our members agreed that their families are supportive of their hobbies (unlike Mildred's Aunt Arlene). We talked about why Aunt Arlene was not supportive of Mildred's pumpkin growing and decided it was because she wanted Mildred to be like her and to be more interested in clothes and shopping.

I asked the group why it was so important for Mildred to grow the pumpkin on her own and we decided it was because she wanted to prove she could do it and also it was her personal connection with her mom.

Mildred isn't at all concerned with fitting in at school and our club members felt that that was okay, because everyone has to be different and it's more important to be yourself than to fit in with others.

Our favorite parts of the story were when Mildred won the pumpkin growing contest and when she met her cousin Amanda. Our least favorite parts were when Grover started spreading the rumor that Mildred hadn't grown the pumpkin on her own and when Aunt Arlene forced her to do things she didn't want to do, like go shopping and go on vacation to West Virginia.

Overall we really liked this book. The author, Marlane Kennedy, sent us autographed bookmarks and real Atlantic Giant pumpkin seeds so that we can try to growing our own giant pumpkins! I'll keep you posted if any of us have success!

It was a fantastic meeting and a BIG thank you to Marlane Kennedy for sending us the seeds and the bookmarks and for talking with us on the phone. More on the phone interview in the next post.....