Backyard Giants

July 9, 2007
The pursuit of the Great Pumpkin among Rhode Island gardeners becomes the passion of Texas-based Wall Street Journal
bureau chief Warren in this gently ironic, thoroughly engaging work. Growing the world’s heaviest pumpkin (the record tops around 1,500 pounds) has become an international sport, requiring full-time planning and cultivation, and amply rewarded in prizes at fairs and in TV appearances. Warren focuses on a group of winners among the Rhode Island club of growers, led by father and son duo Dick and Ron Wallace, who live south of Providence. She follows their fastidious planning over the 2006 growing season, from early tilling of a new patch of land (they burned out the old patch by pouring in too many supplements and fertilizers) to careful selection of seeds from previous monster prizewinners via online auctions, then germinating seedlings in an incubation chamber; this is followed by a strict planting, culling, watering and fertilizing schedule. While wives feel neglected, the men obsessively care for their pumpkin patches, coaxing the behemoths to amass 30 pounds a day at peak growth, and fending off destroyers such as deer, foaming stump slime and cracks in the shell. Each of these growers shares tales of heartbreak, but Warren peaks the anticipation with the big fall weigh-ins, lending a humorous, poignant touch to this hearty gardener’s tale.

October 15, 2007
Why would anyone want to read a book about growing giant pumpkins and learn that breaking the 1500-pound barrier just might entitle the record breaker to wear the "orange jacket"? Perhaps because, in the objective hands of Warren (deputy bureau chief, "Wall Street Journal", Dallas), the story is full of triumph, suspense, and the humor of disappointment. Although Warren probes the fortunes of growers all over the country, especially in New England, she centers her story on the father-and-son growing team of Dick and Ron Johnson in Rhode Island and their very special relationship. One of the most surprising and touching of the book's themes is how willing the Johnsons and other growers are to share materials and expertise, albeit a certain amount of rivalry does exist, much of it played out upon BigPumpkin.com, the favorite web site of growers of giant pumpkins. Along the way, Warren, an avid gardener and debut author, accomplishes what so few writers about science doshe makes clear and interesting the science behind the story. The popularity of gardening and the love of Americans for a winner make this book for all seasons an essential purchase for public libraries and highly recommended for academic and special libraries.M.C. Duhig, Carnegie Lib. of Pittsburgh

Copyright 2007 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

August 1, 2007
Its not only Charles Schulzs Linus who waits every year for a Great Pumpkin to come along. All over the country, from Rhode Island to California, Ohio to Washington, legions of men (and not a few women) eagerly anticipate great pumpkins of their ownliterally. Audacious, obsessive gardeners, they have dreamed and planned, watered and weeded, pruned and fertilized, coddled and agonized over a bumper crop of pumpkins, hoping to nurture one worthy of worlds largest honors. To do that, it will have to weigh in at close to 1,500 pounds and approximate a Volkswagen Beetle in girth. Accompanying father-and-son pumpkin growers and competitors Dick and Ron Wallace throughout a roller-coaster season, Warren experiences it all, from foaming slime to marauding mice. As bank accounts dwindle and ulcers blossom, Warrens hilarious yet enlightening expos' reveals why and how these passionate, peculiar, and painstaking pumpkin growers are willing to put it all on the line for one bigone very bigpayoff.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2007, American Library Association.)