This past weekend, I attended the meeting of a mother-son bookclub. They had read Giant Pumpkin Suite. These young men—nine and ten years old—were sweet with their feedback, and they asked excellent questions about the book, the writing process, and giant pumpkins, too. It was a marvelous treat to be with them. I get a little verklempt just thinking about it.
The hosts served thematic treats—pumpkin chocolate chip cookies, blueberry muffins, french fries, pumpkin seeds, and Mr. Pickering’s Lemonade!
I’m a huge fan of parent-child book groups. My daughter and I met regularly with ours through the elementary and middle school years—so many good books and discussions, and so much fun. I cannot recommend it enough. Those girls are now sophomores in high school, and lamentably it is more difficult to gather, but we still think of ourselves as a book group. In a very fun twist, two of the boys in the above picture are little brothers of the two of the girls in our mother-daughter book club, pictured below. (The pictures capture the kids at about the same age. The mothers are ageless.)
A year after the picture above, these girls and their moms read a draft of Giant Pumpkin Suite and gave me wonderful feedback. Each of the girls is in the book in some way, we realized the afternoon we discussed it. One is a cellist; one was in Fiddler on the Roof the year I was finishing the book; one has a boy twin; one was taller than all the rest of the kids her age (and taller than ME now!); and one had to stop an activity she loved dearly because of an accident.
I did not realize I was writing them into the book—but there they are. This is how a writer’s brain works, I guess. This writer’s brain, at least. (For the record, the boys proclaimed this “cool.”) In any event, I am positive the book would not have seen publication without the girls and their moms—their support is one of the things I will always treasure about this book’s journey.
And to visit the little brothers’ Mother-Son book group five years later…well.
My heart is full.
