[.ca] Pumpkin Jack (ISBN 0807566659)

Pumpkin Jack - Beautiful and Touching:
Pumpkin Jack is a magnificiantly drawn children's book. It's one of the books that you can relish viewing repeatedly. Very good feature since I anticipate having to read this out loud over and over again to enchanted children. The story is excellent.

Follows the Life Cycle of a Jack o Lantern with Feeling:
This is a great little story, far removed from the frightful and cutie-pie ones that are so prevalent at Halloween. Pumpkin Jack is a jack-o-lantern who gradually collapses and dies after Halloween, as all do. We see the little boy through the seasons of his year, occasionally reminded of the old jack-0-lantern. In the spring, a tiny vine begins to grow where the old jack died. The vine, of course, grows pumpkins, which, in the fall, the boy gives away--all but one. Fine watercolor illustrations, which in some places are a bit rough, but the story more than makes up for them. This is what the death of nature in the autumn is all about, beautifully told, with a message of renewal in the end.