Deja and Josiah are seasonal best friends.
Every autumn, all through high school, they’ve worked together at the best pumpkin patch in the whole wide world. (Not many people know that the best pumpkin patch in the whole wide world is in Omaha, Nebraska, but it definitely is.) They say good-bye every Halloween, and they’re reunited every September 1.
But this Halloween is different—Josiah and Deja are finally seniors, and this is their last season at the pumpkin patch. Their last shift together. Their last good-bye.
Josiah’s ready to spend the whole night feeling melancholy about it. Deja isn’t ready to let him. She’s got a plan: What if—instead of moping and the usual slinging lima beans down at the Succotash Hut—they went out with a bang? They could see all the sights! Taste all the snacks! And Josiah could finally talk to that cute girl he’s been mooning over for three years…
What if their last shift was an adventure?
- Title: Pumpkinheads
- Author: Rainbow Rowell
- Illustrator: Faith Erin Hicks
- Publisher: Macmillan Children’s Books
- Date: September 5th, 2019 (UK)
- Genre: YA Contemporary, Graphic Novel
Review: Pumpkinheads by Rainbow Rowell & Faith Erin Hicks
I love a good graphic novel (which is funny considering I only started reading them for the first time earlier this year), and what better way to start off the new season by reading a perfectly autumnal book like this?!
Pumpkinheads, written by Rainbow Rowell and illustrated by Faith Erin Hicks, is about two friends, Josiah and Deja, and their final season working at a pumpkin patch. They’re about to go off to college and the book follows their last shift together before they have to go their own ways.
The book follows their last day at the pumpkin patch, and the things they get up to. Josiah wants to finally make actual contact with a girl he’s been staring at every single season, but he’s too nervous so he spends the entire day worrying; meanwhile, Deja isn’t ready to be miserable yet. She’s determined to make their last shift the best one ever.
The setting of the pumpkin patch is incredible and I want to go there right now. (It actually makes me a little bit sad that it doesn’t exist.) It has all sorts of attractions, food huts, games, and it feels more like a fair or a carnival. As Deja and Josiah run around all over the place to find this girl he wants to talk to, there’s a map in the front of the book to help us keep track of where they’re going next. It’s so cool, and I love the concept!
I love how art styles differ in every graphic novel I’ve read; from the cartoon style of novels like Stephen McCranie’s Space Boy, to the monochrome colour theme in Alice Oseman’s Heartstopper; and I think the Hicks’ style in Pumpkinheads is without a doubt one of my favourites. The autumnal colour palette consists or oranges, browns and blues, and this theme is carried throughout the whole book to keep it consistent. I love with a graphic novel has a cohesive colour palette throughout, so that was one of the things that made this book so great for me.
Graphic novels often can’t explore a story in a great amount of depth, mostly because of the medium they’re in – with illustrated panels filling the space and minimal room for text, the story needs to be told mostly or entirely with dialogue. When a graphic novel tries to cover a story that’s far too long or elaborate, that’s when I find it hard to follow.
Pumpkinheads, however, focuses on such a short amount of time that so many things were explored in a lot of detail: the different areas of the pumpkin patch, the other people who work there, and the main characters themselves. It was so great to all of the different areas drawn so beautifully, and to see the relationships between some of the characters too.
If you’re a graphic novel fan, you should definitely give this a try. You’ll love the artistic style, the relationship between the main characters, and the awesomeness of the pumpkin patch. Or if you’re a graphic novel newbie, you’ll still love this too! Now that the weather is quickly becoming miserable and the leaves are falling off the trees, it’s the perfect time to light a candle, get under a blanket, and pick up a copy of Pumpkinheads.
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