PENGUIN AND PUMPKIN

Penguin, always visible with his orange scarf, wonders what fall looks like in other places—and so does his little brother, Pumpkin.

Penguin and friends shove off on an ice floe to find fall, but Pumpkin is too small to come along. After some floating, they find a farm, which is full of pumpkins of all shapes and sizes. But what really captivates Penguin is the multicolored leaves falling everywhere. Riding in a hollowed-out pumpkin, the group tows another one that’s full of treasures (including books) back home, along with a treat that will show little Pumpkin just what fall looks like. The lines and shapes are muscular and graphic, and the palette is dominated, of course, by shades of orange and the blues and whites of ocean and ice. Pumpkin himself, meanwhile, has imagined fall in a number of other sorts of places with his “space-tacular imagination.” All the penguins have hats or mufflers or glasses or other distinguishing accessories in this series’ odd sort of anthropomorphic community.

Readers with a generous tolerance for quirkiness will find that this seasonal tale, that’s also a bit about little brothers, adventures and the endless diversity of pumpkins, hits the spot. (Picture book. 4-7)