Book Description
From early spring and late into the North Carolina fall, there was always a garden in my backyard when I was growing up. My mother and father worked diligently to plant, care, and harvest everything that was sewn into the soil. I did my fair share of grumbling about setting out tomato plants, hoeing weeds, and attempting to pick butterbeans, but I wouldn’t trade anything for those experiences. Our book, The Last Pumpkin, can be linked to those days, days that seemed a lot less hectic than our lives today. I don’t ever recall talking with my parents about this, but I sensed that everything had value to them. Perhaps, it was their depression era upbringing that was always lingering in their minds, but everything in their garden had value, the stubby piece of corn or the misshapen tomato. In all my work in education, I developed an appreciation for the students who could persevere and work through challenging situations no matter how different they might have appeared to their peers. Sort of like Keeper in the story, they kept pushing, working, and hoping for the right set of circumstances that showed they had value and something to offer no matter how different they were.