Pumpkin Party (Junior Monster Scouts)

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Author(s)

Joe McGee

Publisher

Simon Spotlight

Genre(s)

Age Range

Release Date

July 15, 2025

ISBN

978-1665970211

Buy This Book

The sweetly spooky Junior Monster Scouts series comes to younger readers in a new Level 2 Ready-to-Read format! In this fourth book in the series, the Junior Monster Scouts want to throw a jack-o’-lantern carving party!

The Junior Monster Scouts are throwing a party with a jack-o’-lantern carving contest, and they cannot wait to find the three perfect pumpkins for their work. But when Vampyra, Franky, and Wolfy get to the pumpkin patch, they can’t seem to get any of the pumpkins to come back to Castle Dracula with them. Will they have to cancel the contest?

Editor review

1 review

They Did the Monster (Pumpkin) Mash

October 12, 2025 (Updated: June 29, 2026)

Overall rating

4.0

Plot

4.0

Characters

4.0

Writing Style

4.0

Illustrations/Photos (if applicable)

4.0

This Level 2 Ready to Read early chapter book continues the adventures of Vampyra, Franky, and Wolfy. As their favorite holiday approaches, the trio is planning a Halloween party, complete with snacks and decorations. They want to carve jack o'lanterns, so head out to the pumpkin patch to pick the best one for their projects, which include a bat, the castle, and a wolf howling at the moon. When they try to pick the pumpkins however, they scoot away! They are sentient pumpkins, and do not like the idea of being careved up and filled with twinkly lights. The friends are sad, but come up with a great idea: instead of carving the pumpkins, they will invite all of the produce to their party and PAINT the decorations on instead. The pumpkins agree to this, and end up being the life of the party.

Good Points

Long's illustrations are just the right blend of realistic and goofy, with Wolfy and Franky in boy scout uniforms, and Vampyra resplendent with her Bride of Frankenstein hairdo even when she is a bat. The grounds of Castle Dracula are nice and dark, but their party looks very cozy with its bowls of treats, skeleton band, and strings of decorations. There are enough details on the page to spark conversations about what else might be going on, and to compare and contrast the Monster Scout party with ones the reader has attended.

These pictures also support the text, so readers who might be struggling with the word "pumpkin" will be able to draw clues from context. I appreciated that the vocabulary was generally simple, but introduced more difficult words like "pageant".

For elementary school students, who are the audience for this books with simple chapters and longer vocabulary words, Halloween is the best holiday of the year. They will want to throw a party just like Vampyra and her friends, although I'm not sure that this book will persuade them NOT to carve pumpkins. Include monster scouts on your Halloween reading list along with Miedoso and Rivas' Desmond Cole, Ghost Patrol or Preller's Scary Tales books.