C.N. Rowland
Lanterns are going up all over the Great Garden, and this year Jack Pumpkin is finally old enough to be part of Halloween. There’s just one problem: his Lantern Glow keeps wobbling, and every time he doubts himself it flickers almost dark.When Rootwise Rowan carries the old Harvest Lantern down the narrow path to the Great Garden’s yearly Halloween telling, the light fills with glowing faces from long ago: lumpy potato lanterns, deep red beetroots, stubborn turnips carved by hands that had never tried before. Then comes the old Irish tale of Stingy Jack, wandering the dark with a single glowing coal inside a hollowed turnip, and the families who sailed to America and found something bigger and softer to carve. ’Now it’s a pumpkin,’ Rowan says. ’Now, little sprout, it’s you.’Jack Pumpkin and the Halloween Glow is a real-history picture book wrapped in gentle magic - part of The Root Kingdom, a universe of fruit and vegetable characters whose stories are rooted in true food and folk history. This Halloween Special is about the wobbly first try every tradition starts with - and what happens when a sudden gust blows out every lantern on the dark path home and the Sproutlings need someone to follow.Along the way, young readers meet Bea Beetroot boasting about the beetroot years, play guess-the-vegetable in the dark, and learn the true, gently told history of the jack-o’-lantern, from Samhain bonfires to the pumpkin - spooky enough to be fun, never frightening.Perfect for:- Halloween bedtime reading and classroom read-alouds- Curious children aged 5-8 who want to know why we carve pumpkins- Little ones who feel nervous about doing something for the first time- Families who love a cosy, not-too-scary Halloween storyEven a brand new lantern carries a very old story. Follow the glow!#GrowCurious
