Going to the Fair

Steve Pitt is a Toronto-based freelance writer and an award-winning journalist. He has written many young adult and children's books, including Day of the Flying Fox: The True Story of World War II Pilot Charley Fox.

Erin is a young girl who lives in a farm community somewhere in Canada.
All summer long she has been cultivating a huge pumpkin that she hopes
will win first prize at the local fair. When the contest is finally
over, Erin is so nervous that she cannot bring herself to go inside the
Produce Tent to see if she won.

Instead, Erin wanders the fairgrounds. She meets her friends. They see
farmers showing off their antique tractors, and they see other exhibits
like the 4-H Club and exotic poultry. There is even an amateur clown,
who makes them laugh, and a “Pocket Lady” from the church auxiliary,
who sells hand-crafted surprises out of her baggy apron. Erin is finally
dragged by her best friend, Kate, to the pumpkin table. “A ribbon!”
Kate shrieks, and Erin finds that she has won third prize. She goes home
happy and falls asleep dreaming of next year’s contest.

This is a lovely book. Both text and illustrations capture perfectly
the complex nuances of a simple country fair, where personal triumphs
and disappointments are made all the more poignant because they are
witnessed by an entire community. The story suffers only from a sense of
nostalgia that may make this book more pleasing to an adult who has been
to a country fair than to a child who has not. Recommended.