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BigPumpkin

Front cover of an edition of Big Pumpkin.

Big Pumpkin (ISBN 002782683X) is an American children's fantasy picture book of thirty-two pages. It was first published in 1992. It was written by Erica Silveran and illustrated by S.D. Schindler. The story is adapted from the Russian folktale "The Enormous Turnip". The text of Big Pumpkin was set to music by Richard DeRosa and sung by Steven Blane for a Scholastic cassette.

Plot[]

A witch plants a seed that slowly grows into an enormous pumpkin. Shortly before Halloween, the witch decides that she wants to make some pumpkin pie. She tries to pull the gigantic pumpkin off the vine. She finds, however, that she is not strong enough to do so.

A passing ghost says that he is bigger and stronger than the witch. He says that he can pull the pumpkin off the vine for her. He finds, however, that the pumpkin is too big and too heavy to be pulled off the vine by him. A vampire comes along. Like the ghost, the vampire also boasts that he is bigger and stronger than the witch. Also like the ghost, the vampire is unable to pull the pumpkin off the vine. A mummy arrives. He says that he is bigger and stronger than the other three characters. He also tries and fails to pull the pumpkin off the vine.

A very small bat comes along. All the other characters laugh because they are certain that the bat can do nothing to get the pumpkin off the vine. The bat, however, says that it has an idea. The bat pulls the mummy, the mummy pulls the vampire, the vampire pulls the ghost, the ghost pulls the witch and the witch pulls the pumpkin. The huge pumpkin snaps off the vine and goes flying through the air. It lands on top of a hill and then bounces down to the front door of the witch's house.

The witch makes pumpkin pie and serves slices of it to the ghost, the vampire, the mummy and the bat. After her guests leave, the witch goes out into her garden and plants another pumpkin seed.

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