with illustrations by Richard Egielski.
New York: HarperCollins, 2003.
Margaret Wise Brown (1910-1952) is known as a prolific author of children’s books. Less well known is her association with Vinalhaven, where she spent many summers beginning in 1938. Happy to leave Manhattan behind, she bought an abandoned quarrymaster’s quarters near Long Cove and The Basin, adopted a simpler island life, and called her home the “Only House.” She went on to memorialize the locale in her book, The Little Island (1946). Now, from one of Brown’s previously unpublished manuscripts, we get a new title, The Fierce Yellow Pumpkin. The text is brief, but the pages are full with bright artwork by Richard Egielski, whose illustrations are sometimes reminiscent of Maurice Sendak. This is the coming-of-age story of a discontent pumpkin, wishing he could be different than how he sees himself as he is growing up. It suggests an “Ugly Duckling” storyline. The young pumpkin has dreams of being fierce like the scarecrow he sees further down the field, who ages over the summer and becomes damaged, but is no less scary. And the pumpkin matures too, deepening in color to fiery orange and growing larger in size. This result was as unexpected as Hans Christian Andersen’s duckling maturing, unknowingly, into a beautiful swan. The pumpkin’s wish to look ferocious is realized when children excitedly pick him out of the patch, recognizing him as “terrible,” and carve him a scary face. Now he frightens the field mice just like the scarecrow.
It might not be everyone’s idea of a dream come true, but Brown had insight into what issues children grapple with developmentally; two of her most successful books are Goodnight Moon (1947) and The Runaway Bunny (1942), whose reassuring themes show youngsters the constancy of parental attention and care. Here, her brave and resolute pumpkin grows up to realize his goal, inspired by a stalwart scarecrow and helped by children who sensed his potential. Surely that offers an example for youngsters. One could give this a dark interpretation – after all, is it a good thing to want to be ferocious and scare others? Is success worth claiming if you have to die for it? Since when is being carved up and eviscerated with a knife something to look forward to? But the story presents all of that as a personal (or is it “pumpkinal”?) triumph. After reading this book, you may never again look at the grimacing face of a jack o’ lantern without reflecting on its childhood angst in getting there.
Tina Cohen writes from Deerfield MA and Vinalhaven.