Children’s book characters inspire pumpkin decorating contest

The pumpkins in the library at Iverson Elementary School have a lot of character. Actually, they are a lot of characters.

The inaugural Pumpkin Book Character Contest at the facility, 1575 S. Hollywood Blvd., encouraged classes to choose a character from a book and translate it into pumpkin art. There were a few guidelines, including not puncturing the pumpkin so it could last several weeks on display, but there was a lot of room for interpretation and creativity.

The project was created to engage students, promote reading and bring traffic to the school’s website at iversonelementary.weebly.com from students, teachers and the community. For several weeks, site visitors were able to vote on their favorite pumpkin. School librarian Emily Holm said she was bowled over by the response.

“I thought we’d get maybe 200 votes,” Holm said. “We ended up with 35,448. We had 3,000 votes on the last day alone.”

The contest drew a wide range of entries, including well-known children’s book characters such as the Cat in the Hat and Willy Wonka. Entries also paid tribute to a few modern classics, such as “The Rainbow Fish” and “Kung Pow Chicken.”

“The response from the kids was terrific,” Holm said. “It wasn’t required, but every classroom participated.”

The pumpkins were decorated in many ways. Most were painted, and some featured construction paper elements or props. Others included set pieces or additional characters, such as the title character from the nursery rhyme “There Was an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly.”

“The kids came up with the ideas and what materials to work with,” Holm said. “The kids really had to think about the characters and their traits and figure out what it would take to put that together on a pumpkin.”

Lesley Hufft’s fifth-grade class decided on the title character of “The Paper Bag Princess.”

“We all drew our own picture of what we thought it should look like and then voted on it,” student Cedric Jackson said. “We were in five groups, and we all took turns working on it.”

Cedric said the class members considered characters from three books and settled on the princess in the story over the dragon because they believed it would have been difficult to make the slender dragon from a pumpkin.

Voters saw only a picture of the finished pumpkin and a number, with names purposely excluded. The competition was mostly for bragging rights, with the winners receiving goody bags with bookmarks and similar items. The first-place class received a mesh book tent, a special place where students can read.

“First place went to ‘Pete the Cat,’ Holm said. “That was submitted by our pre-K classroom.”

The contest was such a hit that the Clark County School District posted a piece about it on its website, ccsd.net. The school has been fielding inquiries from other valley schools on how they might initiate a similar contest next year. Holm said Iverson Elementary plans to hold the contest again next year. There will be a few changes to the rules.

“This year, it was open to any character from a book,” Holm said. “Next year, we’ll limit it to characters from books that haven’t been made into movies.”

The contest also seems to have had the desired effect of promoting reading.

“It’s been great,” Holm said. “The kids see the character, and they want to find the book that character is from and read it.”

All of the entries can be seen on the school’s website at iversonspecials.weebly.com/mrs-holm.

Contact East Valley View reporter F. Andrew Taylor at ataylor@viewnews.com or 702-380-4532.