Front cover of an edition of Winnie's Amazing Pumpkin.
Winnie's Amazing Pumpkin (ISBN 9780192729095) is a children's picture book of thirty-two pages. It was written by the Australian-born author Valerie Thomas and illustrated by the Zimbabwean-born artist Korky Paul. It was first published by Oxford University Press in the United Kingdom in 2009. In 2016, it was republished under the title 'Winnie and Wilbur: The Amazing Pumpkin (ISBN 0192748203}. It is the tenth title in the Winnie and Wilbur picture book series that began with the publication of Winnie the Witch in 1987.
The plot is set in motion when a witch named Winnie decides to grow her own vegetables. She gets frustrated because they grow slowly. She casts a spell to make them grow more quickly. The spell works but, as usual in the Winnie and Wilbur picture books, it has unintended consequences.
Plot
Winnie the Witch loves eating vegetables, especially pumpkins. She makes several different pumpkin dishes for herself and enjoys all of them. Winnie's big black cat Wilbur also enjoys pumpkin soup with cream.
Every Sunday, Winnie goes to the farmer's market to buy vegetables. She travels there and back again by flying on her broomstick. Unfortunately, she finds it difficult to carry the vegetables home on her broomstick and many of them fall off. Winnie decides that she should grow her own vegetables instead.
The vegetables grow slowly. When they do grow, rabbits and snails eat them. Winnie decides to cast a spell to make the vegetables grow faster. The vegetables soon grow to an enormous size, as do the rabbits snails and caterpillars among them. Vines cover the entire exterior of Winnie's house and there is a huge pumpkin on the roof. Winnie casts another spell to get the vines off her house and make everything return to normal. While she is saying the magic word "Abracadabra", however, the pumpkin falls off the roof. It is unaffected by the spell and remains enormous.
Winnie cuts a hole in the front of the pumpkin to take out some of its insides. She makes several pumpkin dishes for herself and pumpkin soup for Wilbur. There is still a lot of pumpkin leftover. Winnie puts up a sign outside her house that reads, "Free pumpkin. Help yourself." Many people come and take advantage of the offer. Soon there is nothing left of the pumpkin apart from an empty shell.
Winnie does not know what to do with the pumpkin shell. She remembers that one of her friends once turned a pumpkin into a coach for Cinderella but decides that she does not want to do that. Winnie suddenly realizes exactly what she has to do. She says the magic word "Abracadabra" and the pumpkin shell is transformed into a helicopter. Winnie loves flying in her helicopter. She uses it to fly to the farmer's market and is able to carry home as many pumpkins as she likes.
See also
- Big Pumpkin
- Los Gatos Black on Halloween
- Georgie
- Gus Was a Friendly Ghost
- The Little Old Lady Who Was Not Afraid of Anything
- The Night Before Halloween
- Room on the Broom
- Scary, Scary Halloween
External links
- Winnie and Wilbur: The Amazing Pumpkin on the official Oxford University Press international website.
- There is an article about Winnie's Amazing Pumpkin on the Halloween Wiki.
