MILLIE FLEUR'S PUMPKIN PROBLEM

A love letter to fall and its delightful, delicious pumpkins.

In Garden Glen, fall turns all the vibrant gardens dull, but it’s Millie Fleur La Fae’s favorite season. After planting a varied pumpkin garden, she stores surplus seeds in her (sentient) shed, but Shed gets up and wanders away on bird feet, not unlike Baba Yaga’s house, spilling pumpkin seeds everywhere. The vines that quickly sprout take over the town and become one of the book’s main visual attractions. Pumpkins of all shapes, sizes, and colors appear, including “gourds white as ghosts” and “pumpkins with curly mustaches.” Finding edible and productive uses for so many pumpkins leads to a party large enough to attract out-of-towners, depicted in a lovely two-page spread set at dusk. The resulting compost from all the pumpkins and vines benefits the next spring’s plants, demonstrating that “every season had something bright to offer.” Millie Fleur is a diligent and purposeful protagonist, if a bit peculiar, who demonstrates the power of proper pumpkin planning but also of pivoting when plans don’t go as expected. The artwork beautifully captures the autumnal setting, with the season first depicted in drab greens and browns before it bursts with color through its golden leaves and bright pumpkins. Millie Fleur appears white, while Garden Glen’s residents have a variety of skin tones.

Sweater weather has found its champion.