Book Report Outline
Title______Genre______Pages___
Event 1: ______
Event 2: ______
Event 3: ______
Event 4: ______
Event 5: ______
The Pumpkin Box
By Angela Johnson
In the story The Pumpkin Box, the main characters are Billy and Charlie. Billy is a boy and Charlie is a girl. They are both about 10 years old. The setting takes place in a vacant lot on Magnolia Street. It doesn’t say what town or state exactly. This book is realistic fiction because the characters and setting are real, but the plot is fictional.
Across the street from Charlie’s house is a vacant lot for sale. A vacant lot is an empty area. It was empty because the house that use to be there burned down. Charlie loves to dig and is trying to stop. She asks her friend Billy what she should do and he tells her to just dig. The get Billy’s dad’s shovel and get ready to dig.
They think they are going to dig up saber tooth bones or gold. They start to dig and find some gold spoons. Then Charlie hits something. They wonder what it is. They slowly and carefully dig it up. It’s a pumpkin box. The pumpkin box has paper pumpkins pasted on it, but some have fallen off. Inside they find a letter and some objects. The letter tells them to share the items and then replace them with their own treasures. The box also had a photo of some kids standing in front of Charlie’s house.
For a few days they had to think about whom to give the items to. They think that the people who buried the pumpkin box must have been diggers too. Soon they decided who the special people are that get the presents. They give the nickels to Mo. They give the watch to a guy that lives across from them. They give the book to the library and the Yo-Yo to Charlie’s brother. They decide to keep the note. They took a few more nights thinking about what to replace the items with. They wanted to put things in the Pumpkin box that made them happy.
I liked this book because it was a good mystery and it was really easy to understand. You could relate easily to the characters.