PUMPKIN SMASH!

Guidance for readers seeking to responsibly dispose of dilapidated holiday décor.

Jack-o’-lanterns are fragile and rot quickly. How can we keep them from consuming landfill space, producing methane, and, in liquifying, conveying chemicals into groundwater (as backmatter explains)? The answer is a celebration: the community pumpkin smash. Accompanied by an expressive blackbird, three children go trick-or-treating. But soon the decay of their many pumpkins, and their neighbors’, is evident. Time for a second phase of fun: smashing! “Will you use a baseball bat?” asks the omniscient narrator. “Maybe launch it from a sling?” (An illustration depicts the kids using a catapult.) The tots also drop the gourds from up high and stomp on them—in waterproof boots, of course. At last, it’s time to for these pumpkins to “DECOMPOSE!” In the spring, the kids plant a seed for the next All Hallows’ crop. Final pages clearly explain in more detail the environmental reasons for, and process of, composting pumpkins. Schaub’s bouncy, accessible text has some irregular rhymes. Alexander’s illustrations feature strong reds, but what makes this book stand out among the black-and-orange crowd are the bright blues, greens, yellows, and browns in the bold stencil-like art. One child is pale-skinned; the other two are brown-skinned.

A book to outlast every jack-o’-lantern.