More Max Jacks: Extreme Pumpkins II by Tom Nardone

Tom Nardone, author of the top-selling Extreme Pumpkins: Diabolical Do-It-Yourself Designs to Amuse Your Friends and Scare Your Neighbors and proprietor of his riotous website ExtremePumpkins.com, has a new volume out for the prankster in all of us, the outrageous Extreme Pumpkins II: Take Back Halloween and Freak Out a Few More Neighbors.

Nardone's stated goal for both books is to "reclaim Halloween from the cheerful, the cutesy, and the parent-sanctioned." This sequel advertises such artistic triumphs as the Demented Tool Man pumpkin depicted on the cover, as well as the Projectile Sneeze Pumpkin, Baseball-in-the-Eye Pumpkin, Doll-Eating Pumpkin, and Full-Diaper Baby Pumpkin. Nardone even, er, branches out to that twisted relative of the pumpkin, the gourd, to exorcise, er, I mean exercise, his dark-side-of-Martha-Stewart talents.

Although a loaded-diaper jackie o'lantern may be a tiny bit gross, it's a pretty funny concept that'll give trick or treaters and their bored parents a chuckle on the big night. And if you want to keep your 'tweeners and teeners around for at least part of Halloween night, have an Extreme Pumpkin Party with a take-home product to surprise and delight their own family and neighbors. It's a sorta, kinda, almost wholesome activity for merry pranksters who need to sublimate their drive to make mischief, and if you have the stomach for it, you can always make pumpkin pie out of the, er, remains.

For last season's review of Nardone's first book, see my post of October 12, 2007, here.

Not Your Father's Jack-o'-Lantern: Extreme Pumpkins by Tom Nardone

Here's a brand-new book which is just the thing for all you cut-ups out there who want to carve out a reputation as the kookiest punkin scultor in the neighborhood. The eye-catching cover really says it all: a bright orange Cannibal Pumpkin leers while its twisted mouth crunches down on a hapless baby pumpkin. The book's blurb calls it "a gleefully gory guide for nothing short of a manifesto to take back Halloween from the cutesy and the cheerful...."

Inside this handy paperback there are plenty more extreme creations for every taste (or lack thereof)--from an edible centerpiece Burger Pumpkin in which the two halves of the pumpkin shell form the bun around a giant beef patty with lettuce, tomatoes, special sauce, ya-da, ya-da, ya-da, to Nardone's signature Pukin' Pumpkin which literally spills its guts (seed and slimy pumpkin innards) all around.

One of the designs which is perhaps a little lower on the gross-out scale is the clever Worm Infested Pumpkin, an unhappy looking jack o'-lantern with gummy worms squiggling out of a series of round holes in his head. Higher up the gross-out chart is the Revolting Blood-filled Pumpkin, a practical joke waiting to happen, an innocent-looking uncarved pumpkin which spills "homemade blood" (recipe, page 10) when the clueless would-be carver makes his first cut.

Some of the other featured designs include the Roadkill-Eating Pumpkin (actual roadkill optional), the Brain Surgery Pumpkin (leaking "brains), and the Radioactive Pumpkin, lighted with glowsticks. All of these designs have excellent directions and lists of materials easily found at your local big box stores, and although they do require some adult participation in the process, there is plenty of room for creative kids to have a hand in the final product.

If you are involved in your hometown Halloween house of horrors or just want a jack-o'-lantern that'll give the trick-or-treaters something to think about, Nardone's Extreme Pumpkins: Diabolical Do-It-Yourself Designs to Amuse Your Friends and Scare Your Neighbors will help you carve a creation they'll never forget!