Charlie is the smallest kid in his class. When his teacher brings in three pumpkins and challenges everyone to guess how many seeds are inside each, the results are surprising—to Charlie and to everyone else. It turns out that size has nothing to do with how many seeds are in a pumpkin. For Charlie, who alone among his classmates has chosen to count the seeds in the smallest pumpkin, it’s a sweet revelation. By chance, his small, dark, many-lined pumpkin turns out to have the most seeds of all. Margaret McNamara’s pleasing story integrates math (the kids count their pumpkin seeds by twos, fives, and tens) and scientific observation as their teacher encourages the class to comment on how the pumpkins differ on the outside—which turns out to be the best prediction of what they will find on the inside. (Ages 5–8)