“Once there was a pumpkin.
It was large. It was very large.
The farmer was proud
of his very large pumpkin.
He was so proud of that pumpkin,
that sometimes he talked to it.
“Pumpkin,” he said. “Grow!
Grow, grow, grow!”
And that’s just what the pumpkin did.
It grew.

Before long, it was time to pull
that pumpkin off the vine.
But the farmer could not pull it off.
The farmer pulled and pulled.
But he could not pull it off.

Now the farmer had a wife named Bell.
“Bell!” he called.
“Come help me with this pumpkin!”
So Bell came running.
Bell was big and strong.

But she could not pull
that stubborn pumpkin off the vine.

So the farmer pulled the pumpkin.
And his wife pulled the farmer.
Together, they pulled and pulled.
But they could not pull
that stubborn pumpkin off the vine...

I remember my Russian grandmother telling me this story— only it was a turnip in her version, not a pumpkin. Like my parents, she believed in working hard and never giving up, no matter how unlikely success looked when you started out. And she believed that success often came when you least expected it.  Like the mouse in the story, she was small but she had an immigrant’s grit and instinctive knowledge of how to hang in there and PULL! This book is one of my most popular with children because it empowers the smallest among us to make a difference. — LGB