One Book, Many Stories

When you think about it, many of the books we read have more than one story inside. A book new to the library is "How Many Seeds In a Pumpkin?", written by Margaret McNamara and illustrated by G. Brian Karas. Mostly it is a counting story in which kids in Mr. Tiffin's class learn to count by twos, fives and tens after estimating how many seeds would be in a small, a medium and a large pumpkin. It's also a story about a wonderful classroom, about how pumpkins grow, about strong personalities, and about assumptions. Mr. Tiffin says at one point: "You can never tell just how many seeds are in a pumpkin until you open it up" and "Some small things can have a lot going on inside them." How true. McNamara tells many stories, lyrically and gently, in one delightful picture book.