A club-shaped pumpkin gets dissed by a customer, all the other pumpkins, even twisted apple trees, before the sight of a motley crop of hubbards, acorns and banana squash brings on a personal epiphany: "O my gosh / I'm a squash." Endowed with a face and stick limbs, the gnarled narrator sits down at a Thanksgiving table with its new soulmates, then is last seen strolling down the lane hand in hand with a lumpy new friend. Written in doggerel--"A skeleton came for pumpkins / one bright and crispy day. / I asked if I could get a ride . . . / He laughed and said: No Way"--and illustrated in brightly colored paint-and-paper collage, this weak riff on the "Ugly Duckling" may not earn high marks for botanical accuracy (all pumpkins are squash), but it does feature plenty of visual flash. (Picture book. 6-8) Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Skinny in the middle and bulbous on each end, the Ugly Pumpkin despairs of ever being picked to be a jack-o'-lantern for Halloween; but eventually he realizes he's not a pumpkin at all, he's a squash, and Thanksgiving is more his holiday. Colorful collage art and cheery rhyming text accentuate the comical aspects of this autumnal twist on ""The Ugly Duckling. (c) Copyright 2010. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted. All rights reserved.

Pumpkin pickers pooh-pooh the orange, barbell-shaped "ugly pumpkin" in October. Fortunately, November brings the lonesome veggie some new friends and an epiphany ("O my gosh/ I'm a squash"). Horowitz's (Soon, Baboon, Soon) mixed-media illustrations of the gawky hero-who stands on Mr. Peanut legs, in elfin booties-are a trifle awkward, but expressive hand-lettered pages convey strong emotions. This seasonal entry ends with an unexpected "Happy Thanksgiving!" Ages 4-up. (Aug.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

K-Gr 2-In this story that echoes Hans Christian Andersen's "The Ugly Duckling," a very odd-looking pumpkin encounters harsh rejections, mainly from creatures associated with Halloween. The book contains an inventive, amusing, and surprising compilation of words and illustrations. The minimal text is rhymed, sometimes settling comfortably into a quiet corner of the riotously colorful illustrations and occasionally entering into the vivid tableau. Some children might find the wild depictions of skeletons and the creepy sneers of gnarled trees alarming, but the bright colors, bouncy rhymes, and engaging pumpkin (that turns out to be something else altogether) combine to make this a charming book on the whole, with a happy and surprising ending.-Susan Weitz, formerly at Spencer-Van Etten School District, Spencer, NY (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.