C.N. Rowland
It’s trick-or-treat night on the Great Prairie, every patch glowing gold, and Penny Pumpkin is quite sure Halloween has always been all about pumpkins. Obviously. She’s so busy shining that she doesn’t notice a giggling bunch of Sproutlings soaping lantern glass and tipping lanterns over - until a whole stretch of path has gone dark.Sagebrush Sam sits her down and tells her where tonight really started: turnip lanterns in Ireland and Scotland, the old tale of Stingy Jack, families who sailed to America and found pumpkins far easier to carve, and a time, about a hundred years ago, when Halloween pranks went so far that whole towns woke up to a mess - until communities decided to hand out treats first.Penny 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 shows Penny that being new and being ancient can be the exact same thing: pumpkins have grown in the Americas for around ten thousand years, while trick-or-treating is barely a century old.When three little Sproutlings are left without light on the dark stretch, Penny has to shine for someone other than herself - and young readers discover the true, gently told history of jack-o’-lanterns and trick-or-treating, cozy enough for bedtime and never scary.Perfect for:- Halloween bedtime reading and classroom read-alouds- Curious kids aged 5-8 who ask why we trick-or-treat- Little ones learning that kindness beats mischief- Families who want a cozy, not-too-scary Halloween storyShine bright, sugar!#GrowCurious
