Gris Grimly: "Ten Spooky Pumpkins"

I admire Gris Grimly’s “Ten Spooky Pumpkins” because it’s a genuinely eerie picture book; it doesn’t try to sanitize various creatures of Halloween.

The story involves a little girl in a harlequin costume, enjoying the critters in her corn field. You have goblins, bats, cats, pumpkins, wolves “charging o’er the moor,” skeletons, scarecrows, witches. At the climax, all the critters find one another, for a dance party.

The moon--irritated by the noise--blows a great gust of wind and sends all beings back to bed; “the gate whined CREEEAAAK, and we all were fast asleep.”

There is so much loving attention to detail. Each pumpkin seems alive. A water tower appears to be a monster in disguise. The moon seems to have wandered in from a Tim Burton set.

I will keep an eye on Gris Grimly.

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