Christopher Pumpkin

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To help maintain attention, provide a wand, fairy wings, a pumpkin, a fancy shoe, any relevant puppets, soft toys or dolls - eg a girl puppet and use these items (along with pictures) to illustrate the story. These resources can also be used later as prompts to help retell and sequence the story. Sue Hendra and Paul Linnet have written a number of books together, including I Need a Wee! and the hilarious Supertato series. Sue and Paul's books have sold over 1 million copies, and won numerous prizes including the Laugh Out Loud Picture Book Award in 2016. But that's far too much for one old witch to do. So she brings a few pumpkins to life to help, like: Gnarly, Grizzley, Grunty, Roar, Snaggletooth, Stink Face...Annnnd....Christopher Pumpkin? And so...Christopher Pumpkin decides to come up with a plan. A scary plan. One that might even send the scary witch running in fear! The illustrations were spot on - the emotions were really well drawn and the color choice was perfect.

Discussion; Encourage the children to talk about Fairy Godmothers and magic wishes, discuss what their magic wish would be? Help children to tap with a steady beat as they wave their ‘magic wands’- also to consolidate ‘moving into writing’ actions (see extension activities). I loved how Christopher Pumpkin loved pink cupcakes and unicorns and wasn't ashamed to bake and decorate the way he wanted to. There were SPARKLES and GLITTER...A creepy old witch wants to throw a party - the biggest and bestest and scariest party yet.Christopher is a pumpkin who is created by a witch. Along with other pumpkins, the witch has asked them to do all the dirty work and heavy lifting to get ready for the witches spooky Halloween party. However, Christopher would rather put up bunting then spiderwebs and is not exactly what she had in mind when she wanted spooky. The other pumpkins think he’ll never be able to scare them, but still Christopher is given on more chance (or he can leave) to help. Will Christopher prove he can be scary, or will he leave the witches home? Told in the Night Before Christmas format, this is a story for the quirky kid in all of us. The plot was short but really well executed - the being-true-to-yourself vs following-everyone's-expectations. Sue Hendra is the author and illustrator of the hugely popular and hilarious Barry the Fish with Fingers and Dave. The Wanda the Alien TV series has been a huge success and is screening on Channel 5. Immediately after completing her art degree at Brighton University, Sue got a job with Bloomsbury. She also worked for Walker Books, Oxford University Press and Macmillan where she honed her skills as an illustrator and writer of picture books. Sue has been creating award-winning and bestselling picture books for over fifteen years and has worked on over seventy books.