Pumpkin Magic

May 22, 2020

PreS-Gr 2-On a dark and spooky night, a lonely jack-o-lantern sitting on a porch sprouts arms and legs when it is touched by moonlight. Pumpkin jumps up and marches down the street searching for friends, and certainly finds them; as the moonbeans shine over the field, all the pumpkins turn to lively jack-o-lanterns that party and play for the rest of the night. When morning comes, the original pumpkin leads them all in a parade to town and all the pumpkins settle quietly on stairs and stoops, waiting for the next magical moonlit night. The well-balanced verse scans nicely to the tune of "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star" and the bold, color-saturated illustrations are full of personality. "Stacking pumpkins one by one. Falling pumpkins having fun! Pumpkins round, pumpkins square. Pumpkins in their underwear." However, there's little narrative holding the story together from page to page, and some of the pumpkin's activities make more sense than others. VERDICT This slight tale is a safe but additional purchase for libraries needing to bulk up their Halloween offerings.-Anna Haase Krueger, Ramsey County Lib., MN

Copyright 2020 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

August 1, 2020
Magical moonbeams awaken a pumpkin patch to raucous Halloween-season revelry. A moonbeam illuminates and energizes a smiley-faced pumpkin sitting alone on a stair; it promptly takes off to find a friend with whom to have a good time. An entire pumpkin patch, also sparked by the magical moon, instantly comes alive. And what merriment all the grinning gourds get up to! Their playful shenanigans include piling high on top of one another, bouncing on a trampoline, dancing, marching, and drumming, wearing costumes, and competing in games. They even engage in activities usually reserved for other holiday-themed icons--flying on brooms and making magic, for instance. As dawn approaches, the pumpkin leader escorts the cavalcade back home. At sunrise, each one takes up residence on a different house's front porch and awaits that evening's moonbeams to work their magic again. Liveliness and good cheer abound in this frisky rhyming tale in which the perennial holiday symbols naturally take center stage. Perky couplets that read and scan very well appear on most pages and are accompanied by energetic, expressive illustrations that highlight vivid oranges, yellows, blues, purples, and greens with touches of other bright shades. Readers will delight in discovering the joyous time pumpkins have when it's Halloween. (Picture book. 3-6)

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August 17, 2020
After “moonbeam magic lights a spark,” a front porch jack-o’-lantern leaps to life and dashes to a field filled with pumpkins that, likewise suddenly animated, begin to cavort gleefully. Spunky rhymed couplets by Masessa and luminescent cartoons by Wragg spotlight their boisterous antics, including spitting pumpkin seeds at bull’s-eyes (“Seeds are flying, targets hit./ How far can a pumpkin spit?”) and tossing messy concoctions (“Goopy mud pies taking flight./ Naughty pumpkins shout ‘Food fight!’ ”). Readers meet some outlandish jack-o’-lanterns: one wears underpants, one has five eyes, and another sports a cascading beard. At daybreak, the pumpkins parade back to the tale’s opening setting, each perching on a porch to wait patiently for the next evening, when “the moonbeams shine just right...// And pumpkins romp all through the night.” This slim but energetic caper will tickle fans of Snowmen at Night. Ages 3–5.