Agran invites readers to see autumn from a pumpkin’s point of view: “They’ll bake us and moosh us for pies or roast our insides. No wonder we hide!” Anxiety changes to appreciation, however, when a carver gives one eyes to see, a nose and ears to savor, the season’s sounds, sights and smells, then after “romping under the pumpkin moon” in a Halloween “shivaree” carries the wilted jack-o-lantern back to the fields where a “little silver seed” left inside can await the spring. Anderson assembles large, angular pieces of brightly monochromatic paper into big, boldly colored rural scenes, capped by an outdoor costume party and ending with a scatter of pumpkin seeds across a vermilion page. A sensuous, smile-inducing prose poem that warmly celebrates the pleasures of the harvest, the holiday, and the cycle of seasons. (Picture book. 6-8)
