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Summary
Summary
The trick-or-treaters have gone to bed, but the fun really begins when the jack-o'-lanterns decide there's more to life than sitting on the porch. Full of superbly surreal illustrations, this nearly wordless picture book sets the mood for wild magic for young Halloween enthusiasts. Full color.
Reviews (5)
School Library Journal Review
Gr 1-4-Minimal text and boldly painted views follow the nighttime antics of jack-o'-lanterns and costumes-come-to-life after their trick-or-treating owners are fast asleep in their beds. In the opening scene, children busily carve their pumpkins and paint finishing touches on their costumes. Spare bits of narrative alternate with wordless scenes, fully painted on sturdy paper. Trick-or-treating is quickly done. "Midnight comes-," the children's Halloween paraphernalia spring into action. "It's party time! And away they go-." The night flight through the woods, over the highway and into the city is cheerily eerie, and very much in the spirit of Arthur Yorinks's Tomatoes from Mars (HarperCollins, 1997) and David Wiesner's Tuesday (Clarion, 1991). The swirl of grinning pumpkins sweeps in a long stream across a deeply shaded orange sky, pulled toward the largest jack-o'-lantern of them all. "It's a pumpkin moon!" As morning dawns readers see falling pumpkins through a plane window, past the face of a sleeping passenger, and the puzzled children wake to find their still smoking jack-o'-lantern on the windowsill and the morning newspaper carrying headlines about pumpkin aliens. It's a jolly, pretty tame night out, with only a startled truck driver for humor, but children will likely enjoy the familiar scenario of the nightlife of homely, inanimate things. The foil-paper pumpkin on the jacket is a catchy introduction, and the strong visuals with few words will work well for group sharing.-Margaret Bush, Simmons College, Boston (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Publisher's Weekly Review
A British team, Preston (The Lonely Scarecrow) and Bartram (Pinocchio), reinvents David Wiesner's Tuesday with grimacing jack-o-lanterns and a hellfire orange gleam. At midnight on October 31, weird things defy gravity. When trick-or-treaters fall fast asleep, "It's party time! And away they go." Flying pumpkins, accompanied by empty Halloween costumes, terrorize a trucker and leave sidewalk splatters the next morning. Despite accomplished illustrations, this volume lacks Tuesday's finely tuned mystery and mischief. Ages 6-10. (Aug.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Horn Book Review
At midnight on Halloween, when the trick-or-treaters have gone to bed, jack-o'-lanterns fly off of windowsills and join together for a party under a pumpkin moon. Minimal text and lush, surreal illustrations perfectly capture the malevolent mood. Some children will be transfixed, but the faint-hearted will be frightened by the eerie fantasy populated by scores of angry-looking pumpkins. From HORN BOOK Spring 2002, (c) Copyright 2010. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Kirkus Review
Slick production, heavy paper, an oversized (9 ¾ x 12 ¾ inches) format, and a handsome, stylized, 1950s sci-fi film look combine for a simple yet clever celebration of America's favorite autumn holiday. "October 31 / It's Halloween." In a small New England-esque village-cum-subdivision, children prepare for Halloween. Inside golden and pumpkin-orange-toned rooms, a tableau reveals a clutch of retro-looking children carving jack-'o-lanterns and designing costumes. At midnight, with the trick-or-treating over and the children asleep, a mysterious enchantment causes hundreds of jack-'o-lanterns to rise and converge (along with a few broomsticks, some witches, ghosts, and quite a few ghouls), swooping through the night. A truck driver is amazed and startled, a convenience store is terrorized, and the sky is filled with grinning pumpkins that glow eerily and dance under a not-so-benign orange "pumpkin moon." The next morning, the landscape is littered with pumpkin detritus while a newspaper headline asks and village kids wonder: "Halloween Hoax or Alien Invasion?" It's impossible to approach this clever, handsome, British import without seeing it as a rather obvious homage to David Weisner's Caldecott-winning Tuesday (1991). Spare, headline-like text combines effectively with Bartram's bright autumnal palette. The interplay of spooky light and shadows, heightened by changing cinematic points of view, delivers a crowd-pleasing-if derivative-Halloween entry. A standout in a crowded pumpkin field. (Picture book. 6-10)
Booklist Review
Ages 4-8. Children familiar with David Wiesner's Tuesday (1991) will recognize some similarities in this Halloween offering. As in Tuesday, strange things begin happening on a certain date, in this case at midnight on October 31. Three siblings are asleep when their jack-o-lantern rises from the windowsill and joins hundreds of jack-o-lanterns, witches, ghosts, and ghouls flying over fields, through woods, and into the city. The children's costumes have also come alive, as has a dragon from a poster in their bedroom. Little ones will enjoy keeping track of the costumes and the dragon as the pages turn and get a kick out of a man, drawers around his knees, fleeing a restroom trailed by flying pumpkins. The action culminates when the pumpkin revelers spy the huge jack-o-lantern moon rising in the sky--a pumpkin moon. Some will find this too derivative, but others won't care; they'll just like the surreal story and the humorous visual details. --Shelley Townsend-Hudson
