The Pumpkin War

April 1, 2019
A 12-year-old girl hopes to turn last year's pumpkin-boat-race loss into a win, but revenge might ruin a friendship forever. Billie and Sam's friendship ended last summer when Sam beat her in Madeline Island's annual pumpkin race. According to Billie, Sam cheated, and this summer he'll pay. From pumpkin planting to race-day harvest, Billie's bitterness grows. First she refuses to accept his help, then she ignores him completely. Billie's grandmother admonishes her for this shameful behavior, but it takes a more serious event to lift Billie to forgiveness. The plot offers an appealing premise, and the story's division into four summer-month sections makes for a quick read. Unfortunately, the cultural milieu comes across as unrooted. Billie's "half Ojibwe from [her] mom's side" with "red hair and green eyes" from her father's Irish side, which is completely believable, and some Ojibwe words (italicized) and cultural touches are included. However, such phrases as "running wild" and "wild dancing" read as woefully unaware, and attempts at cultural scenes either surface skim in a manner reminiscent of diversity box-checking or are described through a naïve awe that reads as a white gaze. Additionally, attributing the Blackfoot word "Sinopa" as an Ojibwe name and incorrectly writing that "nitsidigo'i" is an Ojibwe word for "kneeldown bread" when both the word and the bread are Diné (a culturally and linguistically unrelated people 1,600-plus miles away) amplify readers' sense of the author's unfamiliarity with Native peoples. A promising plot that plays Indian; readers looking for #ownvoices should paddle their pumpkins on. (Fiction. 8-12)

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April 15, 2019
Grades 3-6 A competitive girl learns to let things go while preparing for the annual pumpkin boat race on Madeline Island in this character-driven story. At last summer's pumpkin race, Billie was positive that her former best friend Sam knocked into her pumpkin so he would win. This summer, Billie has no time for second place and no time for Sam. She focuses all her attention on the involved process of growing the perfect thousand-pound racing pumpkin. But over the course of the summer, and especially when Billie's estranged grandfather shows up, Billie starts to wonder about the consequences of holding onto anger and if winning is all that important anyway. Madeline Island provides a lush setting for Billie's journey of self-discovery. The details of Billie's everyday life?honey collecting, fishing, attending a powwow with her Ojibwe grandmother, and the complex process of growing enormous pumpkins?are evocatively described. Billie herself is a refreshingly flawed character with lots of room to grow and change. A compelling coming-of-age story.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2019, American Library Association.)