marybatson's Full Review: Margaret Wise Brown - The Fierce Yellow Pumpkin
I adore good children’s books, and have discovered from my visits to the bookstore, and library that much in the way of children’s literature is substandard. Thus, when I read a "keeper" I try to make the time to praise it, so others can appreciate it as well. I’ve rarely read a shoddy work by Margaret Wise Brown, the author of Goodnight Moon, but The Fierce Yellow Pumpkin is average at best.
"There was once a small pumpkin in a great big field,
a very small green pumpkin the size of an apple.
The fierce sun burned down on the little pumpkin,
and he grew, and grew. And pretty soon there was a fat little,
round little, yellow little pumpkin in a great big field."
The pumpkin’s one wish was to be fierce enough to frighten the mice from the field. Overnight the pumpkin grew big enough, and orange enough to be cut from the vine. Along came some children who were yearning to carve a pumpkin, so they took the pumpkin home and got busy. In the end the pumpkin’s wish came true, as a jack-o-lantern he was scary enough to frighten the mice from the field.
Richard Egielski is an accomplished children’s book artist. He’s illustrated many books, The Tub People, The Web Files, The Gingerbread Boy, and so forth. In evaluating The Fierce Yellow Pumpkin as a whole, I have to say, the illustrations are the best part of the book. As an artist, I appreciate watercolor, and deem it more difficult than say acrylic, or oil; however, many of Egielski’s scenes are bleak and depressing. A good artist can accomplish lively night scenes with lots of orange and gold tones, but these pages bear too many browns, and grays for my liking.
In addition, the jack-o-lantern is scary. He has spooky eyes and a large, crooked zigzag mouth. This book is recommended for children 3 to 6 years, but that creepy jack-o-lantern will scare half the target age. Moreover, there’s very little detail throughout the 32-pages. The backgrounds are washed with color, but the foregrounds hold no more facts then the backdrops. Another gripe is that the children appear no older then 6, yet they’re dancing around with an 8” carving knife. I wouldn’t allow my 6-year old to touch a knife that size, let alone skip around a field, and carve a jack-o-lantern with it. It’s preposterous!
Margaret Wise Brown passed away 55-years ago, yet somehow she’s circulating books. (?) That’s odd, isn’t it? Well, it turns out Ms. Brown left a trunk of manuscripts waiting to be published, and Roberta Brown Rauch, her sister, found the time to copyright some of the texts. There’s a gold sticker plastered to the outside of the book that states the book was written by the author of Goodnight Moon. Well, the sticker enticed my mother to buy the book without reading it, so the sticker is likely to persuade others as well.
If this story was as endearing as Goodnight Moon, or The Runaway Bunny. I’d be delighted to know that her works were living on for generations to enjoy, but this story is inferior to those classics. In addition, the tale doesn’t even mention the word Halloween. Beyond the jack-o-lantern, there isn’t anything to let us know it takes place on Halloween, yet it’s categorized as a piece of Halloween fiction. It really should be classified as a fall read, rather than Halloween.
The story has potential. It’s cute to image a pumpkin growing big enough to scare field mice, but the best part of the text, is mentioned above. The story falls flat in the pages that follow, plus it might have been more interesting if the mice found a way to frighten the jack-o-lantern, as mice usually make good protagonists. Moreover, we don’t feel anything for these characters. The children aren’t named, and we don’t even know where they came from. Do they live on the property, or were they passing by. I think in the two years we’ve owned this book, I’ve read it twice. My kid doesn’t like it, because it’s boring. Mama doesn’t like it, because it takes advantage of a popular children’s book author that passed away many years ago.
If you interested in well executed Halloween books for children 3 to 5 years check out Eve Buntings, Scary, Scary Halloween, Kevin Lewis’s, Runaway Pumpkin, Kay Winter’s, Teeny Tiny Ghost, or Erica Silverman’s, Big Pumpkin. These titles are sure to please!
There was once a small pumpkinin a great big field, A very small green pumpkinthe size of an apple.The little pumpkin dreams that one day he will grow...More at Buy.com Marketplaces
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