A Little Girl Celebrates an Old-Fashioned Hallowe'en With Her Grandparents in Pumpkin Moonshine

When I went to the Wizarding World of Harry Potter earlier this year, one of the beverages for sale was pumpkin juice. I didn’t try it, preferring to stick with butterbeer; frankly, drinking pumpkin sounded a bit gross to me. Nonetheless, it is probably the second-most famous drink in the Harry Potter universe. When I came across Tasha Tudor’s Pumpkin Moonshine, I thought the subject would be a similar drink, but with more of a kick. It seemed an odd subject for a picture book, but that just intrigued me all the more.

As I started to read, it further surprised me that the character intending to make Pumpkin Moonshine was a little girl visiting her grandparents. Was this really a story about a pint-sized moonshiner? What sort of drunken revelry would follow?

By the time I reached the end of the book, I realized that I had misunderstood. This is not a story involving potent potables. Instead, it is just about a child eager to make a jack-o-lantern. A quick Google search seems to indicate that this terminology is an invention of Tudor’s, or at least a very obscure name. Was she trying to celebrate an old family tradition or be provocative with her title? There’s certainly nothing else provocative about the book.

Tudor’s dedication reads “a wee story for a very sweet wee person.” This is a small square book with light orange trim forming a thick border around each page. Each page on the left features a watercolor painting rendered in muted tones, while the right-hand page includes a paragraph that begins with the first letter in orange and set apart, large and in an orange calligraphy box. The black ink sketches seen here are thoroughly charming. None of the pages is very wordy; three sentences are the most any one of them has, and in those cases, at least one of the sentences is fairly short.

The main character, Sylvie Ann, is a cute little girl who looks like a short-haired, bonneted Alice in Wonderland. She is visiting her grandparents in Connecticut; Tudor doesn’t tell us what year this is, but it seems pretty old-fashioned, and I would estimate the date to be at some point in the 1800s. At one point she says that Sylvie and the dog Wiggy “puff like steam engines.” The landscape is bucolic and unspoiled, with just a few hand-built structures dotting the farmland, and the spelling of the word Hallowe’en further suggests an older setting.

This is a charming little slice of life tale whose main event is the pumpkin Sylvie selects rolling down a hill. Various types of livestock scatter, and Mr. Hemmelskamp, an elderly neighbor who reminds me of the grandfather in Heidi, gets knocked for a loop. It’s mildly comical, but the writing style is pretty matter-of-fact. What’s more, after all the trouble she goes to so she can “make” her Pumpkin Moonshine, she only empties the pumpkin; her grandfather does the actual carving. Of course, that is probably for the best; small children and sharp knives don’t make a great combination.

This book was published in 1958 and feels older than that. Some children may find it too old-fashioned, but Pumpkin Moonshine offers an appealing peek at a Halloween celebration of yesteryear.