The Ugly Pumpkin

Perfect for the changing seasons, this wacky twist on The Ugly Duckling is a great read for Halloween and Thanksgiving. The Ugly Pumpkin has waited all through October for someone to take him home, but no one wants him. He doesn't look like other pumpkins. So the lonely Ugly Pumpkin leaves the patch in search of a place where he'll fit in. By the time Thanksgiving arrives, he discovers the truth about who he is--but it's not what he expected!

After a jack-o-lantern's night in the spotlight, it gets discarded in the garden, where different animals, bugs, fungi, worms, slime molds, and microbes feed off of it and break it down into the soil, where its nutrients help a pumpkin seed grow.

Little Nell has found the perfect pumpkin for Halloween. It's bumpy and little and lumpy, and just right. Then her bossy sisters, BIG Sarah and BIG Lizzie, tell her it's too small and ugly to make a good jack-o'-lantern. But with a little help from her friends Reindeer, Hare, and Bear Cub, Little Nell shows them all that BIG ideas sometimes come in small packages - bumps and all.

“I don’t have a family,” Spookley said with a moan. “I’m the only square pumpkin that has ever grown.” Spookley the Square Pumpkin wishes he had a family and a place he belonged. He feels sad and alone, until he discovers that no one family tree grows quite the same as another. This fixed-layout ebook, which preserves the design and layout of the original print book, features read-along narration.

A little bat uses brains over brawn in this not-so-scary Halloween picture book. The witch has grown the biggest pumpkin ever, and now she wants to make herself a pumpkin pie for Halloween. But the pumpkin is so big she can't get it off the vine. It’s so big the ghost can’t move it, either. Neither can the vampire, nor the mummy. It looks as if there’ll be no pumpkin pie for Halloween, until along comes the bat with an idea to save the day. How can the tiny bat succeed where bigger and strong spooky creatures have failed? You'll be surprised!

An unlikely trio heads south for the winter! Moose loves the Great North Woods because they?re nice and cold, his buddy Bear lives there, and the pancakes are top-notch. He doesn?t usually go south for the winter, but with Bear off hibernating and the Pancake Hut closing until spring, he figures he might as well take the great schlep with Duck and Other Duck. The trio ends up in the exotic land of Florida and Moose is forever dazzled. Dave Horowitz brings to life the joy of discovering a place completely unlike home?as well as the thrills of bringing a little bit of vacation back home with you!

When five curious young gefilte fish have the chutzpah to sneak out of their jar and set off to explore the world, they are followed by a loud OY VEY!—Mama Gefilte isn’t too happy to see her little ones leaving the nest. But she’s taught them well, and at the end of their adventures, each one proves himself a mensch—making Mama one proud gefilte indeed. Dave Horowitz’s playful rhyming tale, its illustrations packed with comic asides, will have readers giggling out loud and looking for opportunities to practice their Yiddish—with help from the handy glossary at the end of the book.

One by one all the other pumpkins are chosen to become jack-o-lanterns, but even though no one buys the Littlest Pumpkin, her Halloween dreams come true.