LILA AND THE JACK-O'-LANTERN

A young Irish immigrant to the United States adapts her traditions to a new land.

In mid-19th-century Ireland, Jack is a “sly spirit,” a prankster, deterred from entering a house by a carved turnip face lit by a glowing coal placed in the window. Lila and her two younger siblings journey with their Ma to join their Da in an unnamed American city, ca. 1850. The urban landscape is very different from their green fields, and the younger children are anxious about maintaining traditions around Halloween (an Irish festival import). Ma assures Lila that she’ll still “bake colcannon and barmbrack” (though as the recipe at the end confirms, colcannon is not baked). But, alas, there are no turnips to be had. At an open-air market, Lila quickly finds a friend, olive-skinned Julia—and an idea for a turnip substitute. She explains Irish Halloween to Julia, inviting her to participate. Julia explains the edibility of pumpkin seeds (and says that the stringy pumpkin “guts” can be turned into pie, though actually, they can’t). The younger children dress in sheets to scare Jack away (trick-or-treating will develop later). There is no recipe for barmbrack, a sweet Irish tea bread, more complicated than colcannon. The appealingly simple but realistic illustrations, featuring light-skinned, redheaded Lila and her family, are alight with autumnal color and replete with details of tenement life.

A warm story of heritage, and the anxieties and rewards around change.