Grumpkin

Toddler-K–He’s grumpy. He’s brutally honest. He has bigger dreams! And Grumpkin “really can’t stand Halloween.” This bitter pumpkin has had enough of the costumes and trick-or-treating, and he can’t help but think of much better places to be. When the desire to have a new life turns to a reality, Grumpkin has to come to terms with how his life as a pumpkin has changed in paradise. Despite his disdain for all things Halloween, Grumpkin is an adorable bright orange pumpkin whose first-person point-of-view and litany of questions like “Why couldn’t I have been a summer squash instead?” and “What’s so great about getting picked?” make him relatable and endearing. The deliberate use of questions and exclamations, such as “Hello, paradise!” and “these trees don’t grow candy corn!” shows readers and emerging writers how word choice and punctuation can impact a story. There are a lot of language choices here that would make this book a great option to use as a text model. For example, words that are in bold font build Grumpkin’s hyperbolically negative tone: “No one ever lets me forget it,” or “literally all they care about is being picked.” The variety of illustration sizes, from highlight illustrations to spreads, offers all the more depth and engagement.