PLUMPLY, DUMPLY PUMPKIN
by Mary Serforzo & illustrated by Valeria Petrone
Marbles-in-your-mouth wordplay fun as a tiger cub searches for a prime pumpkin specimen. Set to color-saturated artwork, this piece of simple yet exuberant verse follows Peter as he selects from pumpkins lumpy and bumpy, stumpy and grumpy. And pray, “Not some squat, lopsided pumpkin, / but a glossy lot of pumpkin.” Having scoured the expressionistic and very orange landscapes and located his perfect pumpkin, Peter is tempted to turn the beauty into “Pumpkin pudding? / Pumpkin fry? / Pumpkin salad? / Pumpkin stew? / What is Peter going to do?” What he does is shuffle home with the pumpkin and with the help of his father carve it into a glorious jack-’o-lantern. There is a soothing flow to this story as Peter moves from the hunt for the perfect pumpkin—endowed with the romantic, otherworld qualities of a quest through lambent and surreal scenery, where even the trees look like big, round pumpkins—to that most curious of symbols, the jack-’o-lantern, whose associations can be plumbed to a fare-thee-well. (Picture book. 3-6)