THE PUMPKIN FAIR

The reason for this determinedly jolly book seems to be to provide educators with a fall title that invokes autumn harvest themes and even jack-o'-lanterns—yet it never mentions Halloween. It's a bland book from Bunting (I Am the Mummy Heb-Nefert, p. 550, etc.), without her usual bite and wit: "I'm going to the Pumpkin Fair./Pumpkins, pumpkins everywhere!/'These ones here were grown from seed—/Yes sir, yes sir, yes indeed!' "The girl who narrates and her family attend a quaint, small-town festival, where there is pumpkin-bowling, pumpkin-basketball, pumpkin-carving, seed-spitting, deco ration, food, and her prize for "best-loved pumpkin anywhere." It's a family day, with children and pets everywhere and a band dressed as pumpkins. Bunting has done just about everything she can to celebrate the pumpkin, but why? Christelow valiantly trudges along, mustering as many pumpkin-related scenes as she can and stuffing them with comic characters and events, but even she begins to flag near the end. (Picture book. 3-6)