Hannah is nearly eight years old; her brother Jack is six. She’s a more avid book reader than she’s ever been, constantly rereading her same copy of Junie B. Jones and hearing her parents read the Harry Potter series as often as they can. Jack prefers dinosaurs these days, but that doesn’t mean he won’t hover nearby when it’s story time.

Poppin’s Pumpkin Patch Parade is the perfect fall tale about “Pumpky” Pumpkin and her friends – twin hay bales named Harry “Huh” and Harvey “Hay”, “Houdini” Zucchini, Richie Raccoon, Stephanie Stork, Dylan Deer and the Garner Glow Worms. They live at Poppin’s Pumpkin Patch, owned by the Prince and Princess of Romantown, where they have the best fall celebration. However, the new owner of the town next door, Tree Town, is up to no good. Will the pumpkin patch and its tenants be able to put on their parade?

The story is heavy with alliteration, from the names of the characters to Pumpky’s love for speaking “mostly in P’s”. They’re all tongue twisters yet Hannah was able to read through the names smoothly and nearly each one made them both giggle.

As the story progressed, Hannah and Jack had a bit of an issue remembering parts of the storyline. Pumpky calls the different crops growing in the patch “pops” because of its love for speaking in Ps. However, once the “pops” were reintroduced later in the story, they had to go back to recall what they were. They also didn’t fully understand why the hay bales, “Huh” and Hay”, were constantly sneezing. Despite them being Pumpky’s best twin buddies, Hannah and Jack were disinterested in their part of the story.

A question that they asked at the end of the book made it clear that they were fans of the story – where’s the book about Tree Town? At the end of the book, the Prince and Princess of Romantown bought the land and turned it into Poppin’s Pine Town. Does that mean a similar story will take place and have a winter theme? Hannah and Jack need to know.

The nostalgia of this book might be lost on Hannah and Jack – the book is co-written by Kimberly J. Brown of Halloweentown fame – but that didn’t stop them from indulging in a fun fall read before bedtime. It has them excited for their upcoming Halloween parties and parades (they have so many coming up that they have multiple costumes!) and is sure to be a story they’ll read again next.