OCTOBER IS PUMPKIN TIME!

Pumpkin Moonshine, by Tasha Tudor

Fall is probably my favorite time of year.  Even in California, we get chillier nights, crisp days, and hopefully some colored leaves.  When my children were young, we loved making trips to the pumpkin patch with friends or just our family to see all the pumpkins lined up, large and small.

My husband's company used to host a pumpkin carving contest every year and our kids had lots of fun coming up with original ideas for their entries. It was fun to watch as their creations (with dad's help) took shape:  one year we had a Pumpkin Train Conductor, fitted with an engineer's cap and rigged with a train and track running through our smiling jack-o-'lantern; a Cinderella Coach pumpkin, surrounded with netting and tiny, sparkling lights; a Sinking Titanic pumpkin, complete with toilet paper roll smokestacks; a clown jack-o-'lantern, made using a white pumpkin and a colorful wig; and a pumpkin modeled after my husband, with glasses and a necktie!

There are fun ways to create pumpkins that don't involve carving!  Click Here.

We don't do elaborate jack-o-'lanterns anymore, but I still look forward to finding yummy PUMPKIN RECIPES so we can enjoy the smells and tastes of autumn in our kitchen! And my daughter and I search high and low every fall for pumpkin candy corn!

found this on pinterest

Here are some fun children's book about all things pumpkin:

THE PUMPKIN BOOK by Gail Gibbons (ages 4-8)
Bold and colorful watercolor illustrations and a descriptive text explain the planting, cultivating, and harvesting of pumpkins. Gibbons also includes a description of their traditional use by the Pilgrims and at Halloween. There are also interesting facts about the history of pumpkins, their nutritional value, pollination, and instructions for drying seeds to eat.

FROM SEED TO PUMPKIN by Wendy Pfeffer (ages 4-8)
One of her science series books, this title explains in simple, clear language the stages in the development of a seed into a pumpkin. Some easy recipes and experiments are included at the end. Kids will understand better the passage of time involved with planting and tending gardens through the appealing watercolor-and-pencil illustrations.

PUMPKIN DAY, PUMPKIN NIGHT by Anne Rockwell (ages 4-8)
As the leaves turn color, signaling the approach of "pumpkin time," young Jeffrey draws sample jack-o-'lantern faces on construction paper in anticipation of soon carving a real pumpkin. Finally pumpkin day arrives; Jeffrey and his mother drive to the farmers market and select their perfectly round and orange choice.  At home they finally carve real jack-o-'lanterns.  Megan Halsey's fun 3-dimensional art is the perfect accompaniment to the lively, rhythmic text.

PUMPKIN MOONSHINE by Tasha Tudor (ages 4-8)
Tudor's delicate orange-framed watercolors of a rural autumn and a bonneted little girl speak to a softer side of Halloween--one that is not overtaken by scary themes or images, but is a reminder of the season in all its fresh abundance. Halloween is coming, and Sylvie Ann wants to make a pumpkin moonshine (or jack-o'-lantern), so she sets out across her Grandmummy and Grandpawp's cornfields to find "the very finest and largest pumpkin."  She finds it - and the problem is, how to get it home!