#816 of 1001 · October 25, 2022

Halloween approaches. A time when lights flicker in the darkness, thumps and bumps echo in the night, and the rich smoke of mystery pervades the autumn air. For the third year in a row, I will be posting a week of Halloween books, this time with the visual theme of pumpkins and jack-o’-lanterns. Here is Linda Williams and Megan Lloyd’s The Little Old Lady Who Was Not Afraid of Anything. The protagonist, having gone out to the woods to collect herbs and spices, nuts and seeds, finds herself menaced by a sequence of mysteriously animate objects: a pair of shoes, a pair of pants, a shirt, a hat and a pair of gloves, and a big pumpkin head. These items chase her all the way back to her house, where she finally confronts them. The pumpkin head admits that they simply wanted to scare her. The little old lady makes a helpful suggestion, and by the next day the pumpkin and the articles of clothing have assembled themselves into an amiable scarecrow. Assigning a catchy onomatopoeia to each whimsical apparition, Williams creates an irresistible cumulative story; Lloyd provides charming illustrations for an elementally simple and uniquely memorable combination. #little #old #lady #forest #woods #fear #scarecrow #pumpkin #halloween #book #books #childrensbooks #picturebook #picturebooks #picturebookillustration #picturebookart #childrensbookillustration #childrensliterature #illustration #kidlit #kidsbooks #bookworm #booklover #booklovers #bibliophile #bookstagram #bookstagrammer #bookstagrammers #instabook #instabooks