I love the book's cover illustration. There's bagpipes, a banjo, a steaming cauldron, and of course, a pumpkin. In fact, all of the book's illustrations are warm and cozy. According to the book's jacket, Helen Cooper had already won a prestigious awards for illustration - the Kate Greenaway Award. But the next year, she'd win the same award again - for the illustrations in "Pumpkin Soup."
The book opens with a crescent moon hanging in an aqua sky over a blue, pumpkin-shaped cabin. The moon glow lights up the skinny tree trunks around its pumpkin patch, while the window shows a comforting orange glow inside. Living inside are a cat, a squirrel, and a duck, though they're first glimpsed as silhouettes - playing the bagpipes. But the point-of-view draws a little closer in the second illustration, peering into the orange room, where the animals are brewing pumpkin soup.
"They slurp their soup, and play their song, then pop off to bed, in a quilt stitched by the Cat, embroidered by the Squirrel, and filled with fine feathers from the Duck..."
It seems like the text wants to rhyme, but instead it just lilts along like the improvised lyrics of a song. The three animals always do everything together, and truthfully, their personalities seem a little interchangeable. But the book's simple drama finally starts when the duck announces, "Today it's my turn to stir the soup." The squirrel disagrees, and their fight eventually wakes up the cat. But eventually, the Duck storms off because "You never let me help with anything," and packs up all his possessions into a wheelbarrow.
Helen Cooper IS a wonderful illustrator. (I love the mysterious dark green leaves in the colorful pumpkin patch where they search for the duck.) The story is a little weak, but the lush pictures have almost an "instant storybook" effect. And the book's last page even includes a recipe for pumpkin soup. ("To make soup almost as delicious as the soup in this book...")
So the two remaining animals search for their duck friend in the woods, worried about its trees "and the foxes and the wolves and the witches and the bears." They imagine duck falling over a cliff, or (in a very illustration) becoming famous for his wonderful pumpkin soup recipe. But by the end of the book, the three friends are all reunited, and all is forgiven. At least until the book's last illustration, with the three animals squabbling furiously over who gets to play the bagpipes next!