by Moe Zilla

Created on: May 28, 2010

It's a story about a pumpkin that becomes a Halloween jack-o'lantern - but it's really about a little girl who's the youngest of three daughters.  The book opens with her happy family "in a great BIG house in a great, BIG woods." There's Big Sarah and Big Lizzie, but the heroine is a girl named Little Nell. She's been helping the family water the pumpkin patch behind their house all summer long...

It's a sweet, simple story that feels personal and familiar. This is the Halloween when her mother says that Little Nell also gets to carve a jack-o'lantern. But she's baffled when it's time to pick the right pumpkin. Like Charlie Brown at Christmas, Nell is fascinated by a bumpy little pumpkin sitting all by itself at the end of the patch. "This one's my favorite," she decides. "It could have a nice, smiley face."

Of course, Nell's older sisters tease her. ("It's bumpy and little and ugly," says Big Lizzie...) But the story remains true to its characters, and it's fun to watch Lizzie loyally defending her pumpkin. ("I like the bumpy one.") When her sisters leave her alone, she even sheds tears over the unappreciated pumpkin. But fortunately, she's friends with the animals in the nearby forest - Reindeer, Hare, and Bear Cub.  And none of them think her pumpkin is too little and ugly...

The reindeer even helps to carve the pumpkin with his antlers, and the bear cub helps her scoop out its pumpkin-y insides. The girl whistles for the birds in the forest, and they peck out the shapes that Lizzie's requested. Maybe the real message of the story is that carving jack-o'lanterns is all about the fun of the experience. But when she gets home, Lizzie's sisters still tease her about the pumpkin - until her mother insists that jack-o'lanterns "come in all shapes and sizes." The little girl is seen hugging her pumpkin on the book's final page - and over the drawing, the illustrator writes "Happy Halloween."

The book was written by Margery Cuyler, and I feel like it's got a nice, affirming message for children. But it's also obviously aspiring to be a Halloween book, where it gets some help from illustrator Will Hillenbrand. There's lots of festive orange in his simple caricatures, telling the story with uncluttered pencil/watercolor drawings. And in the first two pages, he even adds some Halloween cameos. On the second page, there's a spider dangling down towards the kitchen table.

And on the first page, there's even a witch crashing into the side of the family's house!

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