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The Pumpkin Fair
by Bunting, Eve,
1928- Clarion Books, c1997.
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Young readers can accompany a young girl to a country fair, where all the inviting sounds, smells, foods, games, and the pumpkin contest provide a delightful setting, in this charming, rhyming story. A rather ordinary pumpkin wins a prize for "the best-loved pumpkin at the fair, the best-loved pumpkin anywhere"

This cheerful book follows a girl and her family as they participate in the activities of the Pumpkin Fair, including pumpkin bowling, pumpkin juggling, and a seed-spitting contest. From endpaper to endpaper, the energetic artwork complements the rhyming text; together, they capture the busy fair in humorous detail and convey the girl's pride in her own ""hand grown"" pumpkin. Copyright 1998 Horn Book Guide Reviews
Horn Book Guide Reviews 1998 (HG98)

"There's even gooey party stew/ (I'll try them all, except the stew./ It's icky-looking, gross, pew-yew!)" Bunting's (Smoky Night) rhymes typically project an authentic voice, and this time the voice belongs to a gangly girl who visits her village's annual Pumpkin Fair. Accompanied by her parents and a sibling dressed in a bunny suit, the girl admires the Pumpkin Princess, enters a pumpkin-seed spitting contest ("Pucker up and let 'em fly!/ Spit 'em far and spit 'em high!") and tastes pumpkin cooked every which way, including the aforementioned stew. Christelow (the Five Little Monkeys series) partners Bunting's text with flavorsome cartoons. Exuding a mild sense of humor and much affection, they capture both the excitement and goofiness of the small-town event. But Bunting has something more important in mind than just a fun outing. Everywhere her heroine goes, she cuddles a pumpkin that she has grown from a seed. It's small and bumpy, she admits, but, "I tell her that it's still OK./ She's very special in her way." Her steadfast affection is rewarded at the end, when she wins the prize for "best-loved pumpkin at the fair/ The best-loved pumpkin anywhere!" This lightly proffered moral, along with Bunting's effortlessly idiomatic verse, makes for a sweet seasonal tale. Ages 3-6. (Aug.) Copyright 1998 Publishers Weekly Reviews
PW Reviews 1997 May #4 (P7E4)