In this story that echoes Hans Christian Andersen's The Ugly Duckling, a very odd-looking pumpkin encounters harsh rejections, mainly from creatures associated with Halloween. The book contains an inventive, amusing, and surprising compilation of words and illustrations. The minimal text is rhymed, sometimes settling comfortably into a quiet corner of the riotously colorful illustrations and occasionally entering into the vivid tableau. Some children might find the wild depictions of skeletons and the creepy sneers of gnarled trees alarming, but the bright colors, bouncy rhymes, and engaging pumpkin (that turns out to be something else altogether) combine to make this a charming book on the whole, with a happy and surprising ending.–Susan Weitz, formerly at Spencer-Van Etten School District, Spencer, NY Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.