After a jack-o-lantern's night in the spotlight, it gets discarded in the garden, where different animals, bugs, fungi, worms, slime molds, and microbes feed off of it and break it down into the soil, where its nutrients help a pumpkin seed grow. Compost won't mean the same thing after readers see the amazing transformation of Jack, from grinning pumpkin to mold-mottled wreckage to hopeful green shoot.

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